About
The Volley Academy, one of the partners, is fully committed in promoting more and more the engagement and participation of girls and women in sport, not only as athletes, but also in coaching, managing and directing sport clubs, organizations and
federations. The main aim of the Volley Academy is contributing to the possibility that every boy and girl, every man and woman, in practicing a sport, can feel
that same joy that its founder Manù Benelli, a setter with an extraordinary career, can still represent today. The Volley Academy develop some specifics actions for this purpose :
- The Volley Clinic is intended for sports clubs and territorial committees, which can entrust athletes and coaches to an innovative training project, involving practical lessons in the gym and theoretical training in the classroom, together with video analysis and technical meetings; with the aim of improving the performance of the various roles in volleyball. In all the courses, the values of inclusion, equality, respect and diversity are full part of the program.
- Workshops : In the last years, Manù Benelli personally have carried out an intense activity of workshops and conferences, providing numerous courses for coaches and referees for the main sport and volleyball organizations (FIPAV, CONI, CSI, UISP, and others), informative meetings and seminar to promote and testify the experiences of gender equality and respect in the world of volleyball.
This collaboration project will be very innovative by creating new tools that allow a global approach according to different items in order to diagnose but also to support organizations and governance of sports institutions through the prism of diversity and with a framework and a protocol developed by the experts in this consortium. These tools will be adaptable for all types of organization, club, federation, but also valuable for all European countries.
Now, to the best of our knowledge, such tools do not exist yet.
This project is also in line with the previous European mentoring program SWinG, which enabled 20 women to be supported to apply for board positions of their choice. It also resonates to the project “Step Up Equality” (2019-2021) led by Girls in Sport, a Swedish organization which consisted among other things in analyzing the barriers preventing women to take up leadership positions in sports organizations.
Here, with GOLD Sport (Governance, Leadership and Diversity in Sport) we do not want to accompany only women, but all those present in the governance who want to instill a new dynamic of performance based on skills and allow women who are currently in the minority to join key positions in the organization of federations, clubs or leagues. The will is not to be interested only in women but also in men who are open and who influence a dynamic and a desire of more equality. The objective of the
label and the support that goes with it is to go beyond the simple quota to be obtained, not to have more women in the governing bodies just for the sake of more women, but to surround oneself with competent people to federate around good practices so that this approach does not appear to be a sanction or an obligation: the label must make people want to achieve a more competent organization that is fairer for all.
The innovative aspect also lies in the composition of the consortium. Indeed, the Swedish federation of individual sports, a major country recognized for its actions in favor of gender equality, will allow us to draw the best from these actions which are envisaged for Latin countries (such as France and Italy) but also for collective sports clubs which are aware and actors of this change but whose actions are still too
less perceptible to bring about a real change (such as the Volley Academy).
Furthermore, Sweden, as a nation has also a lot to offer in terms of digital innovation as they are at the forefront in this field and have also an exemplary democratic parliamentary system.
We want to make the most of what is being done at European level in favor of gender equality in sport's governing bodies to create an efficient tool for all, which will take into account their local challenges butwhich will pull all European countries forward towards more equality and gender diversity.