Does our recovery from Covid-19 give us the opportunity to change?

As we are reaching one year since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, it is extremely important we do everything we can now to ensure young people are at the heart of the nation's recovery from this pandemic. At Dallaglio RugbyWorks, we believe sport and physical activity needs to be put at the forefront of this recovery due to the proven physical, mental, and social benefits it can bring to young people's lives. With schools and after school clubs already open and organsied outdoor sport returning at the end of the month, it is clear the government supports our thoughts and understand just how important physical activity is going to be over the next year in particular.

Our Managing Director, Sarah Mortiboys, discusses just how important this is below...

"Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire, it has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope where once there was only despair."
Nelson Mandela.

Never more so than now has this quote from Nelson Mandela resonated so much. As a nation we have lived through one of the most challenging periods in recent history and as we move forward in 2021 we must learn to recover and reinvent to build a more inclusive and relevant sporting culture not just for now but for the future.

Our young people have suffered; isolation, lost learning, lack of physical activity, time spent with their peers, and therefore we must support them to remember how to engage and play to enable them to regain the all-important opportunities that being a young person can provide you with. Sport and physical activity has a vital role to play in our collective covid recovery.

As we emerge, the skills that we learn from participation in sport will form part of the recovery kit bag. The ability to communicate effectively through experience of team play, the resilience developed from understanding how to lose, the self-awareness learned from understanding your role within your squad, are all vital traits to help us rebuild in a strong more inclusive society which is tolerant and caring of each other.

However one big question still remains: how do we now use this as an opportunity to have a different conversation? All young people have the right and entitlement to a healthy, active and therefore happy life but we don’t operate on a level playing field. Those who come from a background of disadvantage and therefore disengagement are often not supported in a way that is relevant for them; therefore how do we begin to operate in a world that moves us from equality to justice? How do we apply the knowledge of that different conversation to help us achieve proportionate universalism? At Dallaglio RugbyWorks we believe in addressing the cause. Working alongside our young people to help them remove some of the systemic barriers that they face when trying to achieve success. Our policy call is to apply these principles across the board; address the cause and apply the solution in a proportionate way. Be deliberate, be passionate and be brave enough to be unshakeable in your approach to achieve a universal level playing field.  

Sarah Mortiboys
Managing Director