Increasing sport and active recreation opportunities for everyone.
About Fair Access
Sport and active recreation are core parts of our lives, contributing to health and fitness, culture, social connection and sense of belonging. We want sport and active recreation to be available to everyone, so everyone can fully participate and reach their full potential.
It is difficult for some people to participate in sport and active recreation. Fair, inclusive and safe opportunities can mean different things to different people.
Fair Access aims to increase opportunities in sport and active recreation for everyone, in particular women, girls and under-represented groups. In turn, organisations may find benefits in:
- new ways to attract more participants including players, volunteers and officials;
- stronger, more connected community and organisation;
- increased funding opportunities
How to implement Fair Access
Engagement with Greater Bendigo sport and active recreation organisations and the community has helped to identify barriers and motivators to participation in sport and active recreation. This has been used to develop the City’s Fair Access Policy and Fair Access Action Plan. The actions relevant to sport and active recreation organisations are provided below.
Action 1 is the key organisation action from the City's Action Plan and a great first step.
Action 1: Assess
Assess opportunities and identify actions for implementing fair access by downloading and completing the self-assessment tool.
Action 2: Provide
Provide information about activities and inclusion on CONNECT Greater Bendigo.
Action 3: Promote
Promote benefits of sport and active recreation for all – including health, fitness, wellbeing, social connection, fun, stress reduction, developing skills.
Action 4: Celebrate
Celebrate those that are leading the way in gender equality and inclusion – including through newsletters, social media, awards or congratulating those doing the right thing.
Action 5: Support
Support and share information about informal and free participation opportunities – including by providing times a facility is available for community use and come and try events.
Frequently asked questions
Sport includes:
- informal sport e.g. playing tennis with a friend, and
- organised sport e.g. playing in a competition
Active recreation is leisure time, non-competitive, physical activity for exercise or enjoyment.
Participation includes a range of roles, such as:
- Player
- Volunteer
- Committee member
- Umpire
- Official
- Spectator
How we see a space or opportunities is dependent on our life experiences. Aspects of a person's identity may affect these experiences and how welcome and safe a person feels participating. Aspects of a person’s identity may include (but is not limited to) gender, age, cultural background, ability, religion and sexual orientation. Under-represented groups are people that are participating in lower numbers relative to the population in the broader community, and may be grouped by aspects of a person’s identity.
Fair Access will help organisations identify ways to improve how they address the motivators and needs of existing participants and potential new participants. In turn, organisations may experience:
- more participants, such as players, volunteers and officials
- increased performance, where all members can bring their best selves
- increased long-term sustainability of organisation
- stronger, more connected community and organisation
- increased community support
- increased sponsorship opportunities
- increased grant funding opportunities
We are not all starting at the same place. People may have different needs and power and these differences should be identified and addressed in a manner that fixes imbalances. Equity is the process of being fair to everyone in the distribution of benefits and responsibilities, and makes adjustments to address imbalances.