Statistics tell us that a lot more males take part in Physical Activity than females. However, over the last few years women across the world have been inspired to put whatever fears they have aside, putting on their trainers making sure they have some well-deserved ‘me’ time.  We have seen more women’s sports coverage, fantastic female elite role models getting the recognition they deserve and 1.6 million women becoming more active after the launch of the #this girl can campaign!

One of our members tells us below how running and physical activity such an important part of her life has been after she became homeless just over two years ago.

“Although I feel tired during the run itself when I finish I feel amazing and I now survive 5km run on a weekly basis. I have been diagnosed with depression and running is a distraction when I am feeling low it’s a huge help. Joining The Running Charity has helped me to lose weight, meet lots of new people and I no longer feel out of place when exercising! “

Ann is now refocused on life, gaining work experience and feeling the benefits of a healthy lifestyle.

At The Running Charity we are on a mission to ensure that our sessions and programmes provide the same welcoming experience for all our young people. The level of male and female participation has always been reflective of our hostel and day centre partners but like all runners we always want to do better than our last run.

At the beginning of 2017 we sat down with our female graduates and spoke about how our services could go even further to ensure that they had a better and more tailored running experience. In May last year Rachael joined our team as our Women’s Programmes Coach; since then we have forged new partnerships with female hostels, refuges and provided more women only sessions. This has seen us increase our female participation by over 320% compared to the same time last year! We have also seen a significant increase in female volunteers and through our mentor programme we are able to help even more incredible young women like Ann.

On International Women’s Day it is important we champion and celebrate the achievements of women to both running and society. It is also important that days such as these are benchmarks to do better and that as a society women’s voices are not a 1-day event or simply a # tag but, rather, are part of the push to focus on women’s rights and empowerment all year round.

If you enjoyed this article or wish to support our cause, please consider donating to The Running Charity

simply text IRUN42 plus the amount you wish to donate to 70070

for e.g. “IRUN42 £4” to 70070

or to volunteer, email ‘info@therunningcharity.org’