International Women’s Day: European Lotteries members empowering women in and through sport

Beyond their traditional support to grassroots sport, the Lotteries in Europe united under the European Lotteries (EL), driven by their core values, society, precaution and integrity, have always perceived sport as an excellent tool for empowerment and social integration.

On March 8, the world is once again celebrating the International Women’s Day. Gender equality but also gender empowerment is something that can be achieved both in and through sport. The Olympic and sport movement as well as the EU and the Council of Europe have taken actions to address the issue on different occasions. And of course, as commitment to society is one of the core lottery values, the lottery movement as well has been active in this domain, recognising the significant societal value of sport. The members of European Lotteries strongly support this.

Many of the members of European Lotteries have been using sport as a tool to empower women. In Portugal, in particular, EL Member Jogos Santa Casa, in partnership with the Portuguese League Against Cancer, sponsors the Women's Run, which promotes interpersonal relationships and solidarity to raise awareness about the need for prevention in relation to cancer but also to raise funds for such a noble cause. In the UK, also, EL Member Camelot has been supporting the “This Girl Can” initiative, which is a £10m lottery funded advertising campaign, run by Lottery Distributor Sport England, and designed at inspiring a generation of women to get active.

In France also recently the French Lottery, FDJ, in partnership with Ulule released a call for proposals (Sport pour Elles) with the objective to select the best project proposals that seek to promote female physical activity in France. As part of the process, FDJ Foundation along with Ulule selected 10 project proposals that received support in order to propose a campaign seeking to inspire and encourage female physical activity.

Therefore, also thanks to the lottery support, women can feel more empowered in and through sport. This strong support of members of European Lotteries to grassroots sport, but also to the use of sport to support societal matters, has always been a fundamental raison d’etre of Lotteries and needs to be safeguarded, as also highlighted by the Recommendations of the Commission’s High level group on Grassroots Sport.

[This article has been edited by the Operating Team.]

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