By Emer Carton
Canoeing Ireland Women in Sport Lead

Canoeing Ireland

What is the Bridge the Gap intiative

Bridge the Gap is an initiative set out by Canoeing Ireland and funded by Sport Ireland, which aims to develop and promote women in all paddlesports across Ireland. To do this we have examined our 11 unique disciplines to find the areas which would need the most attention in order to grow our female participant numbers and grow the number of those women who will take on leadership roles. scenery.

The best way to do this was to have a team of women to consult who have expert knowledge of their niche area. We have developed a group of 35 ambassadors for women’s paddling – with representatives from each discipline and corner of Ireland, including coaches, instructors, athletes, committee members, clubs, providers, inclusion coaches, university students and scouts.

Sport Ireland’s Women in Sports steering committee have listed us four key areas for development: Active Participation, Coaching & Officiating, Visibility, and Leadership & Governance.

What are the aims of the Bridge the Gap initiative?
Visibility:
  • We aim to have 50% coverage of females across all our social media platforms. The ambassadors are already leading role models in their area and are key to driving this, however we need all our members to promote females across media more. Ambassadors have committed where possible to make themselves more visible both online and at events.
  • We aim to highlight the number of women who attend each event throughout the year with help from our member event organisers.
Coaching & Officiating:
  • We aim to see a 20% increase in the number of women who achieve coaching/instruction qualifications from 2019 figures by the end of 2021.
  • We aim to record at least one female referee/judge at each competition or event.
  • We aim to have three of our competitive disciplines have a high-performance training camp for junior girls run in Ireland with top coaches – if this works, we would have more of this in the future for all disciplines!
Leadership & Governance:
  • We aimed to and have achieved the development of our Women’s Ambassadors group who have been working together on how the future of our sport will grow to become more inclusive for females. We have had 35 ambassadors engage in a Leadership Training Programme where they have developed their own leadership skills and are putting into action some innovative ideas on how to make paddling more inclusive for women.
  • We aim to have gender equity across all discipline sub committees and our board of directors by the end of 2021.
  • The majority of ambassadors have committed to identifying and guiding at least two females from their own paddling community towards their leadership journey in a casual mentoring role. We aim to host a networking event for all those involved next year where they can learn about the women in the wider community. This would aim to develop female leaders and the community.
Active Participation:
In 2020 (or 2021 depending on Covid-19 updates) we aim to have:
  1. A minimum of 20 girls and 20 women’s only introductory/intermediate courses run across Ireland.
  2. 20 discipline specific ‘coaching clinics’ lead by women or lead by men and attended by women.
  3. Have at least four beginner friendly events run outside the Dublin area to reach our rural communities.
  4. Carry out research on ‘why women drop out of the sport’ and use this to inform our members on future developments.
  5. Run five regional workshops on sustainability for women in clubs.
  6. Run five workshops on managing the fears associated with paddling as an adventure sport and as a competitive sport.
  7. Encourage the running of multi-disciplinary camps, courses, programmes and events.

Since being granted funds our plan for making changes in these areas has been carefully developed to maximise its effectiveness. The ambassadors for women in paddlesports are a huge part of making the changes we need to see. Many plans have been put together on how each ambassador will make a community and national impact on women’s inclusion in all paddlesports.

Covid-19 has presented us with some difficulties about rolling out many of the projects planned over the past few months, however we are doing our best to develop the areas that we can. One area that can still continue to develop is Visibility. Over the past five weeks we have been showcasing our ambassadors through social media outlets and giving them the recognition that they deserve as inspirational role models to our members.

Through our Bridge the Gap Instagram we have been sharing many of our female members workouts, and paddling stories also.

You can find out more about the initiative and who our ambassadors are in the Canoeing Ireland E-Zine FlowState (https://canoe.ie/flow-state-issues/), on our Instagram @bridgethegap_2020, or through our Bridge the Gap webpage at www.canoe.ie

Bridge the Gap