What is Inclusion?
Inclusion is pro-active behaviours, options and actions to make people from all backgrounds, ages and abilities feel welcome, respected and that they belong at your club. Being inclusive is about following best practice for what sport should be so that everyone can get the most out of it.
What is Diversity?
Diversity is the mix of peoples’ different attributes and backgrounds (i.e. race, ethnicity, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, religion). A good way to think about diversity is to think about your local community. Does your club reflect the diversity of your local community? Diversity is the mix of people, inclusion is trying to get this mix to all work together in harmony.
Why should inclusion be supported?
Inclusion does not just happen by itself; it needs to be proactively driven by all stakeholders in sports!
Organisations dealing with disability-sports and para-sports may use the concept of inclusion to develop and sustain some of their sports, or to enrich participation; e.g. in sports where there is too less participants to form teams at the local levels, or in sports that require extensive resources such as sailing or horse-riding.
For organisations that organize EWoS events, fostering inclusion will create more participation, additional awareness and acceptance, respectively; at the same time this will support creating equality and social capital leading to more united communities.
