Equity, diversity and inclusion

Tackling inequality and increasing diversity in physical activity & sport is one of the greatest challenges we face. Active Oxfordshire remains committed to working towards becoming a fully inclusive organisation, where people are treated as individuals and receive the support they need in order to have access to the same opportunities. We know for our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion progress to be authentic, we need to embed this throughout our organisation and share the responsibility across the team, trustees and partners.

We recognise that, at times, this means challenging ourselves, feeling uncomfortable and committing resource. As an organisation, we have been working hard to ensure that Equity, Diversity and Inclusion is embedded across the organisation and we feel we have taken significant steps to making this happen over the past year. However, we are fully aware that we are on a journey and we still have much to do.

We also recognise that we have a part to play externally; with partners, with local organisations and in the community. By working together, sharing learnings and having open, honest conversations, we can continue working towards making Oxfordshire a truly inclusive place to be physically active but to also live, work and play. We will always ensure that, where it is appropriate to do so, we place genuine lived experience at the heart of our decision making as well as at our events and in our communications.

Active Oxfordshire's 'Fighting Inactivity, Tackling Inequality' agenda has Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at it's heart and is closely aligned to Sport England's new 10- year Strategy 'Uniting the Movement. This page sets out our commitment to Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and our direction of travel for the future:

• We are an organisation that is explicitly anti-racism and will continue to ensure we, and all those we work with, continue to adhere to this. We will apply the same zero-tolerance approach to all forms of prejudice and discrimination. We believe in physical activity and sport for all people.
• We will strongly support Sport England's plans to tackle inequality in sport and physical activity by adhering to the highest standards of Tier 3 Code of Sports Governance and supporting outcomes set out in the new 10 Year Strategy.
• We are proud to be a diverse organisation including our core team, trustee and ambassadors; but we recognise we must do more to be representative of the communities we serve. This includes amplifying the lived experience voice at all levels of the organisation, to ensure our progress is authentic. By giving our team a platform to discuss and reflect and we aim to keep learning through both experience and formal training.
• Our Active Ambassadors programme enables us to work with a diverse group of individuals who have experience of barriers to physical activity. Our Ambassadors feed into our decision making as do other stakeholders across the community. This includes co-designing interventions which address inequality and exclusion. It also helps to ensure lived experience is at the heart of our decision making process.
• We strive to ensure all terminology, across all communications, is up to date and is inclusive. We recognise this is an ever changing situation. We welcome feedback on our communications so please get in touch if you think we can improve in certain areas.

Why are we adding pronouns into our email signatures?

At Active Oxfordshire, we believe that everyone has the right to be who they are and to feel safe and supported in this. As part of our ongoing commitment to embedding inclusivity across our organisation, we encourage any members of the team who are comfortable doing so, to proactively state the pro-nouns that they use. There are many different reasons for doing this; including showing respect, support and allyship for those within the Transgender community, which is something Active Oxfordshire is fully committed to, and ensuring that people are referred to as they wish to be, limiting the risk of assumptions being made.

We also recognise that it is important that our staff and Trustees are able to make individual decisions based on a variety of topics. Adding pronouns is a very personal decision and may not be what all members of the team wish to do and we fully appreciate and support this. The use of pronouns is, and always will be, a choice for staff and Trustees at Active Oxfordshire.

If you've got any questions or queries about anything on these pages, we'd love to hear from you. We want to be involved in conversations about progressing all our journeys as a collective and recognise that we don't have all the answers. You can find the details of our leads for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion below.