Guiding Principles

Over the course of six years, Women Win has gathered a diverse set of experts, coaches, programme staff and girls from around the world to share their knowledge about how to address SRHR through sport. These individuals work in women’s rights, sport and development, large multinational organisations, as well as the corporate sector. The result is the base of content presented here as the “official” version of this Guide.

The success of such a Guide depends on its grounding in "local knowledge, locally defined current and historical context and local experience of that context, explored and analysed by local participants themselves".8 Without this locally-specific basis from the outset, the Guide would not work, and certainly would not travel. That is why this initial co-created version is intended to be the seed for this body of knowledge. By inviting collaborative authoring, translations, comments, contributions and adaptations through our Creative Commons license we invite a greater global community to help evolve the content. This license allows for sharing adaptations always with attribution. Our hope is that this Guide will become a community-owned conversation about how to use sport as a tool to address adolescent girls’ SRHR.

There are many reasons why it is important to adapt the Guide. These include:
• Making it more relevant to the cultural context
• Responding to local priorities
• Increasing local participation and sense of ownership
• Encouraging critical thinking about the aims and intended achievements

Note: Throughout this Guide, we refer to "our" programme partners. This does not merely represent Women Win's programme partners but it also represents workshop attendees, collaborators, experts and organisations that have contributed to our knowledge base.

It is important to note that not all the 'useful examples' represented in this guide involve sport. Women Win believes that there are many lessons that can be learned and practical interventions that can be replicated from SRHR programmes not involving sport.