Snowsport England are passionate about making snowsport for all and being inclusive and welcoming to people from all backgrounds.
Yesterday (6th Feb) we shared across our social channels that we are supporting the Race Equality Matters ‘#MyNameIs’ campaign, which is taking place across Race Equality Matters week from the 6th – 12th February.
A big element of our strategic goals for 2022-2032 is to increase representation of different ethnicities across the board to better reflect our wider society. By supporting campaigns such as #MyNameIs, we hope to start conversations around race and how we can tackle inequalities in the sport. We must do more to be representative of England, but we know this will take time and will be a key element in our decision making on long term change across the next ten years.
Alongside supporting campaigns and showing public support, we will work hard behind the scenes to increase our learning and insight, as well as having conversations with key partners and stakeholders around measures we can take to drive change.
The theme for 2023 Race Equality week is #ItsEveryonesBusiness because tackling race inequality is everyone’s business. Since launching our public support of #MyNameIs, we have already received some suggestions and ideas from our members, we welcome these ideas and are pleased to see it has had a positive effect to start conversation. If you want to share your ideas or thoughts or are passionate about this area of work and want to get involved, contact jade@snowsportengland.org.uk.
As we say, this will take time, but we are starting our journey with small actions by changing all our staff email signatures to include #MyNameIs during Race Equality week, to show our names with their phonetic spelling. #ActionDrivesChange
You can learn more about phonetics and make your own #MyNameIs picture here: https://www.raceequalitymatters.com/my-name-is/.
This campaign is important, Race Equality Matters have found that in a survey they did, 73% of people had their name mispronounced (out of 180). This can result in people feeling disrespected, upset and like they don’t belong.
#MyNameIs uses phonetic spelling of names and allows anyone to pronounce another person’s name correctly.