England Netball is proud to be participating in Race Equality Week, from 5-11 February 2024. Race Equality Week will unite thousands of organisations in action to seriously address race inequality in the workplace.
A UK-wide initiative, Race Equality Week was launched by community interest company Race Equality Matters to turn words into meaningful action; a movement spurred on by the events of 2020, which have heightened the country’s collective consciousness of the racism, inequality, and injustice experienced by ethnically diverse communities.
We need to keep the momentum going when it comes to tackling race inequality. Race Equality Week was created to enable this hence it is positioned a few months after Black History Month.
With over 4,500 organisations engaged in 2023, Race Equality Week 2024 is set to engage even more.
Race Equality Week is a positive force for action.
Building on the REW 2023 theme, which sent a clear message that race equality is everyone’s business (#ItsEveryonesBusiness), the 2024 theme of #ListenActChange will bring everyone together to focus on taking action to drive change.
The theme was selected by the Race Equality Matters community and it reflects ongoing findings and feedback:
- 64% said ethnically diverse employees are playing a key part in tackling race inequality in their organisation, and only 17% said allies were.
- Only 32% said their organisation focuses on action and not just words.
Everyone has a role to play in the fight for racial equality in the workplace, from the top of each organisation to the bottom. The sooner we act, the sooner change can become our reality!
England Netball is committed to ensuring netball is an inclusive sport and improving diversity at all levels, and has undertaken a programme to listen to our membership and learn about the experiences within our sport.
As part of our ongoing commitment to not only diversify our sport but to embed a culture of belonging at every level of the game, the latest Diversity & Belonging Report was released back in April 2023. The report provides a review of affirmative action taken to celebrate, educate and embed inclusive procedures, and also highlights the current position and landscape, including key findings from the Big Netball Conversation around inclusivity. You can read the full report here.
The report was published alongside Sporting Equals’ 2023 Race Representation Index (RRI). The index provides an important baseline barometer to score publicly funded National Governing Bodies (NGBs) of sport against progress with the equality agenda, with a particular lens on ethnic diversity and representation. Out of the 55 NGBs that responded, only 29%, including England Netball, scored A-C. You can see the full report here, with a breakdown of our scores and against other sports.
Using all the insight gathered, every department is contributing to the development and delivery of our Dedicated 2 Difference Action Plan which will help us drive an anti-racist culture through an equitable approach. We will continue to educate ourselves and our netball family about the impact of direct and indirect racism and how we can all be more proactive to increase the sense of inclusion and belonging and continue to strive for race equality. Our action plan will also help us to remove barriers to access our sport and actively celebrate diversity.
During Race Equality Week and beyond, we’re asking the Netball Family to join us and thousands of other organisations by participating in workshops and initiatives run by Race Equality Matters. These include the 5-Day Challenge and #ItsNotMicro, as well as Tea Break and MyNameIs – all of which will help us reflect and, more importantly, take meaningful action to drive race equality.
Making sure netball is a place where people are consistently welcome and can belong, flourish and soar is everyone’s responsibility. You can read our Belonging Commitment Statement and pledge your support here.
We’ve also developed conscious inclusion training to raise awareness of how equity, diversity and inclusion issues play out within the Netball Family, and to support all our people to be more inclusive.
If we all commit to #ListenActChange, then real change can take place.
For more information, visit raceequalitymatters.com.
