The Olympic Federation of Ireland held its National Launch Event on the 13 November 2023 at Sport Ireland Campus in Dublin.
The Olympic Federation of Ireland (OFI) is a partner of the Erasmus+ project “Guidance to Achieve More Equal leadership in Sport” (GAMES).
OFI organised the National Launching Event in November 2023. This was attended by relevant national and regional sport organisations, as well as policy makers, among others the member National Federations, Sport Ireland, the National Government body for Sport, the Olympic Federation of Ireland Gender Equality Commission, third level institutions involved in the project, guest speaker Vicki Huyton, as well as panellists, Jon Rudd, Swim Ireland, Tricia Heberle, Irish Amateur Boxing Association, and Ciaran Ward, Sport Ireland.
The National Launching Event presented the GAMES project, its objectives and relevance. Accordingly, it aimed to present its main deliverables including the Baseline Study and its main finding on gender equality at the national level, the Global Pool of Actions and OFI’s National Action Plan. Therefore, the current challenges in the realm of gender equality in leadership were addressed through open discussion/workshops which in turn allowed for the development of cooperation between relevant national/regional stakeholders.
OFI’s National Launching Event covered three important topics under the OFI Gender Equality Strategy, the EU Erasmus + Games project, including the measures being taken both internally and externally within the GAMES OFI National Action plan, in particular, measures taken the compile the Gender Equality strategy as well as internal measures to provide policy for flexible working practices, gender equality related changes to the OFI Staff handbook as well as training to be rolled out in late 2023 on the use of gender appropriate language. The national launching event also included two projects run in partnership with third level institutions on the portrayal and visibility of women in sport as well as the presentation of research commissioned by the OFI in relation to the gender imbalance that currently exists in high performance coaching.
Hence, the National Launching Event aimed to share OFI’s National Action Plan whilst further promoting knowledge and information regarding the current situation and foreseen future actions in terms of gender equality in leadership positions. Besides, the National Launching
Event served as a springboard to develop measures to promote gender equality in sport leadership in the national ecosystem whilst being a valuable opportunity to further encourage networking and cooperation among relevant stakeholders.
