A busy working mother who is getting
women in her neighbourhood into running and a project that gave
more than 100 young people in Buckinghamshire the opportunity to
getting involved in the iconic Olympic sport of rowing, have been
honoured at an awards ceremony at the House of
Commons.
Carolyn Ditton, a special needs teacher from
Woking and mum of four, was named Sport Maker of year
after helping more women to get into running. Inspired by
this year’s Games, Carolyn wanted to introduce sport into the lives
of people who don’t normally do exercise.
After attending a Sport Maker
workshop to learn the skills and opportunities to make sport happen
in her area, she also completed a leadership training course in
running fitness to help her develop her coaching skills, ready to
lead her running group, the Ladies Olympic Legacy
Group.
Second place in the Sports Maker
awards was 18-year-old Sarah Devon who has been helping
non-disabled and disabled people to take part in a variety of
sports, including volleyball, boccia and indoor athletics, as well
as setting up a girls football team for her college
friends.
Third place went to Shell Wildsmith, a mature
student at Staffordshire University, who has been organising
sessions of Rush Hockey – a new informal version of the sport – to
introduce students to the game.
Awards were also given to recognise some of
the amazing Sportivate projects happening around the
country with Rowing in 2012 named as Sportivate project of
the year. The project has worked with local schools, colleges,
young offender institutions and groups supporting young disabled
people, to introduce the sport of rowing.
Speaking about the project, Amanda Foister
from Longridge Activity Centre said: “We have been delighted to
help over 100 young people try rowing for the first time. Sport can
help people develop in many different ways and we are really
pleased that so many of the participants are planning to either
keep rowing or give another new sport a go.”
Second place went to Cumbrian project,
CanDance, which has created six new inclusive youth dance groups,
one in each of Cumbria's districts. The project was set up after a
consultation revealed a lack of inclusive dance opportunities in
Cumbria for young people with learning disabilities such as
autism.
The Twilight Football project in Suffolk was
awarded third place in the 2012 Sportivate awards in
recognition of is inspiring work with young people Ipswich. Young
people were encouraged to take up football on Friday evenings, an
approach that has seen a drop in anti-social behaviour in the
area.
The awards were presented by the Minister for
Sport and the Olympics, Hugh Robertson MP, and Don Foster MP for
Bath, with all finalists receiving tickets to the Olympic Games
from the hundreds of tickets made available to Sport England via
the London 2012 Ticketshare initiative.
Sportivate and Sport Makers are part of Sport
England’s legacy programme, Places People Play, bring the
inspiration and magic of a home Olympic and Paralympic Games into
the heart of local communities across England.