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UnLtd and Sport England announce Movement for Change. Our exciting new £3.5m partnership.
UnLtd and Sport England announce Movement for Change. Our exciting new £3.5m partnership.
Written by
Tim Lages
Social Entrepreneur Support Manager
Sports and physical activity have touched nearly all of us at some point in our lives, and continues to be a fantastic vehicle for social change. England has witnessed the recent success of the Lionesses bringing it home and shining much needed publicity on women's football, as well as Ellie Simmonds' many successes in the pool and acting as a champion for disability sport.
In local communities, the success of organisations like Move it or Lose it, Rolling Sports Pathway, and Box Up Crime are creating their own waves of change, and are proudly supported by UnLtd.
And, at this point, it would be remiss of me not to shout out every inspiring volunteer, parent, guardian etc who make local clubs work; it's all hugely motivating to see the dedication put in from bottom to top. What's clear is that sport and physical activity is an incredible combination of participation, inspiration and, for the most part, positivity.
The programme comes at a challenging time for both sectors. Social enterprises and the wider sport and physical activity sectors aren't immune to the cost of living crisis. With marginalised groups becoming increasingly more likely to find it difficult to participate or find services that are suitable for them. This challenge isn't something that can be solved easily, however, we hope this programme will go some way to getting us back on track.
Launching in February 2023 Movement for Change will fund roughly 120 social entrepreneurs across England over the course of the coming two and a half years. Movement for Change will be prioritising women in leadership and leadership by Black, Asian, minority ethnic and/or disabled people amongst the SE's it supports.
The partnership is seeking to get as many people active and moving as often as possible. Woven into this we want to enable marginalised communities to gain greater access to inclusive services that improve levels of physical activities.
Through the support we are providing, our inclusion ambitions and work with across the sectors we believe our social entrepreneurs can start chipping away at some of these challenges they are facing. This is a key part of our Breaking Down Barriers agenda. As time goes on we hope that social entrepreneurs will help make the sector more sustainable, more impactful and more inclusive.
We hope Movement for Change can be just a small contributor to this in the future. Learn more at Movement for Change.