Scottish Disability Sport – Girls in Boccia

Research over previous years has identified that there has been a decline in females participating in sport and disability sport is no exception. Identifying that there is a lack of female presence is the sport of boccia Scottish Disability Sport (SDS) in partnership with the Sport Scotland’s Women and Girls fund have created the ‘Girls in Boccia’ campaign to engage more females into the sport. In receiving this funding, it has allowed SDS to create a dedicated Boccia Development Officer position.  SDS now has a resource to deliver a more targeted approach to engage women and girls and the campaign, which launches in September 2019, will be a vehicle to achieve our outcomes.

The project aims to increase the number of women and girls playing boccia, as well as being an active member of the local community.  We aim to improve the lives of people with severe physical impairments through the sport by making them more physically active, whilst engaging with others in a social environment.

Using the Girls in Boccia programme we are planning to deliver girl events, as well as using a targeted marketing approach to encourage engagement at already established sessions and clubs.  We are also offering one-to-one sessions in schools and a mentoring programme.

To make this happen we have partnered with national charities, including; Muscular Dystrophy UK, Cerebral Palsy Scotland and Capability Scotland. Furthermore, we will work closely with the Active Schools Network, Local Authority staff and our own regional network of staff.

We are still in the initial stages of our project, but we have appointed a Boccia Development Officer, as well as creating a brand and logo that will be used to spearhead our project via our website and social media platforms.  By raining the profile of boccia and the women and girl’s element we aim to achieve an increased interest and a bespoke service to this hard to reach demographic.  Furthermore, we have identified several individuals across Scotland, who we are engaging with on a one to one basis with support from the Active Schools network.  In addition, we have planned an Active Girls day in Edinburgh on the 4th October as part of the SportScotland national initiative.  We have also delivered several sessions via our partnership with Cerebral Palsy Scotland.

https://www.scottishdisabilitysport.com/boccia-home/

@SDS_Sport (Twitter)

@SDS_Sport (Instagram)

Scottish Disability Sport (Facebook)

We would love anyone who wants to take part in boccia or wants to be a part of boccia in Scotland to contact:

madison.garland@scottishdisabilitysport.com

07568 319 099

0131 625 4412