Practices linked to All In Plus project

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Constance OLIVIER

Modified 4 Months ago.

Zij aan Zij

Organisation responsible:

Cycling Vlaanderen (Cycling Federation)

Strategic field:

☒ Gender equality in participation (grassroots or elite sport)

Type of resource/practice:

☒ Educational tools (training activities, curricula, educational materials, etc.)

Target group(s):

☒ Beginners league girls under 18

Brief desciption of the resource/practice:

ZIJ AAN ZIJ is a campaign motivating young sporting girls to start cycling in competition. We promote all disciplines of cycling. Role models and successful elite athletes are always one of the driving forces in the promotion of the sport in question. In addition, with the ZIJ AAN ZIJ campaign, we do our utmost to minimise the barriers to start cycling as a girl. We identified the barriers, and these are situated in the following areas, among others:

Technical level (we provide bicycles and cycling equipment)
Social level (we encourage group spirit among girls by organising many group training sessions).

We also focus on creating more girl-friendly youth clubs through a strong club support plan. For example, we assist youth clubs with volunteers to develop a separate girls' section in their sports activities. That way, young girls do not quickly end up in a predominantly boys' environment, which only enhances the enjoyment of cycling in a long-lasting way. The ZIJ AAN ZIJ campaign was first launched in 2020. In two years, it increased the percentage of youth girls compared to youth boys on competition bikes from 6% to 10%. The number of competition girls (18 years also tripled in absolute numbers). Through the ZIJ AAN ZIJ campaign, we are not only focusing on quantity. Thanks to our promotional campaign, we have already discovered some great talents who will undoubtedly make it to the elite women in the long run (e.g. Hélène Hesters and Maaike De Mits). Hopefully, via this path, a lot of "new" Lotte Kopecky's will be on the way and we will also play along at the top sports level (Belgian Cycling) in the wide range.