Overcoming Gender Discrimination in sports

How to overcome gender discrimination encouraging women representation in sports making it as like the fashion industry?

The quest of finding a solution to this deep-rooted rider problem began with listing down all the possible solution idea. A cost matrix was then developed to understand the cost and success component of each.

The various solution included increasing awareness by including women in some of the most popular tournaments like IPL, involvement from the government in terms of the special training facilities for women in cities, incentivizing the channels broadcasting the woman sports. These solutions have a very high impact, but the cost involved is tremendous. Moreover, the involvement of the government makes the process inherently slower and difficult.

The other set of solution were the ones which target the schools. A change in the mindset is the best done at younger ages when girls and boys play in their schools.

Cost- Impact matrix

According to a survey, it was noticed that the majority of the girls in school sat in one corner during their physical education class. Hence the solution selected aims at sensitizing the children from their school ages itself.

The solution – “We play, we learn” program

The generation today is smart and has access to sources of information. Planting a seed in their heads would make them aware of the issue. The program would start with collaboration with schools and subsequently the P.E teachers of their school. In the P.E classes, we would include training or various sports for both girls and boys. Through activities, the children will be made to understand the strengths each gender possess and how we should learn to include everyone. The program would also include students researching and making a project on their favourite sportswoman. A special weekend training for the PE teachers on how they could form the curriculum to benefit the cause.

There would be an App to support this program, basically a community of teachers in the cause. The PE teachers would use it to follow the curriculum and send pictures. This would also include a reward system for the teachers performing well. Another feature of the program would be collaborating with the sports club and roll out offers for these when you register along with a girl.

Storyboarding

Storyboarding was performed to visualize the impact of the idea.

Storyboard

Look-alike

1.App

Below is a look alike of the App that will be used by PE teachers.

2.3-D model

The 3-D model depicts a day in the program for any school.

3-D visualization

One day experiment with physical education teachers

Post identifying the solution, it is imperative for the idea to be tested with an experiment. Designing the experiment, the various assumptions that I would want to be wanted to tested are as listed in the diagram. 

--Need (Desirability)– Girls would want to see sports devoid of gender discrimination

--Technical (Feasibility) – There would be a willingness among physical education teachers to drive programs in schools

--Operations (Scalability) – I would be able to scale up and include various schools under this program with the same principles

--Commercial (Viability) – Schools will be ready to adopt the idea widely and it would become a prerequisite for any school

That leap of faith assumption among this would be the one about whether there would be a willingness among physical education teacher to drive the program.

Hypothesis to be tested
The hypothesis to be tested would be that PE teachers would feel responsible and join hand in this cause.

The experiment to test the feasibility would be performed by conducting a session by inviting 9-15 physical education teachers of middle-class schools. The teachers would be shown a video covering various aspects on gender discrimination the women have been facing in India. The group would then be addressed by a sportswoman explaining them the impactful change they can make from their end.
This would be followed by an interactive sesssion on some past experiences of the speaker 

Cost of experiment

A cost requirement would be some incentives like some “goodies” and hospitality for the teachers. This would be around 4000-5000 INR.

Monitoring Success

The success of the idea is directly proportional to the involvement of the teachers. Inputs of these physical education teachers would help us gauge the level of interest. Good insights and discussions from the teachers will determine the future success of the idea

Have a happy read,
Penned down by
Deepshikha

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