Empowering Women Athletes

Background The project addressed discrimination and harassment towards women athletes, interconnected phenomena affecting women across various sports. Sports often reinforce gender stereotypes and lack equal opportunities for female athletes. Access to sports activities for girls is hindered at early stages, with many being directed towards non-competitive disciplines. Objectives The main objective was to develop a community of athletes, professionals, sport managers and policy makers in Europe to actively prevent and counter violence, abuse, harassment, and discrimination against female athletes in key sports environments, providing them with knowledge, education, and practical tools specifically designed by the project to catalyze dialogue and collaboration in Europe, promote innovative responses; raise awareness; produce counter-narratives; test training campaigns. Implementation Overall, during the course of the 30 months were implemented: 4 transnational meetings, 5 Intellectual Outputs (1 publication about the state of the art of gender violence and harassment in sports, 1 empowerment strategy for women athletes, 1 training course on gender equality and fighting discrimination in sports, 1 centralised help-desk to support victims of discrimination in sports, 1 petition to the European Parliament based on a European survey, disseminated through 8 Multiplier Events. Achievements Over the course of the project, the most noticeable result was the implementation of the Centralized peer to peer helpdesk model, experimented for 1 year. It helped prevent, address and support the victims of gender discrmination and violence in 8 Countries, with good results in terms of participation and of awareness raised, also thans to the adoption of the other Intellectual Outputs produced, namely the Empowerment Strategy (IO2) and the Training course (IO3).