We wish to express our true gratitude to Canadian Women & Sport for selecting BCWBS as a recipient for the 2021 WISE Fund for our GO TIME! program.
Go Time is our GIRLS ONLY program. It is open to girls aged 8-18 years of all abilities and welcomes persons who identify as LGBTQI2S+ persons. GO Time was created to help empower girls with physical disabilities across BC, introducing them to new sports and life skills while also creating connections and friendships throughout our community.
The overall goal of this program is to increase the number of female youth with a disability who are physically active and participating in wheelchair sports for years to come. We will work to provide a safe, supportive environment for female athletes with a disability to participate in wheelchair sports; to create and maintain a social network that provides a sense of social cohesion and motivation for each other; to target regional participants who do not currently have access to this type of network; and to provide leadership development for our veteran athletes through a mentorship/peer program component.
We offered four virtual GO Time sessions, Winter 2021 and will work to offer more during the following spring and summer season. This additionalfunding will allow us to expand the GO Time program to include a regional focus with a planned Okanagan GO Time Weekend event paired with on-going mentorship for these regional participants. We anticipate that the GO Time Okanagan will be delivered in partnership with BC Wheelchair Sports Association and will provide the opportunity for women and youth across BC to come together and try a variety of wheelchair sports with the support of strong female coaches, staff and peer mentors. In addition to being physically active, participants will engage in team building activities, goal setting sessions, and life skill sessions focused around nutrition, healthy relationships, and female empowerment. By expanding our Girls Only programming beyond the weekend camp, we will be creating a natural progression for our female participants to continue developing their skill and work with local disability sport clubs to ensure continued support and participation.
We will engage strong female peer athletes with a disability to assist with the delivery of the program to ensure the female participants have role models who can share in their lived experiences and success in sport. Leadership development is built into the design of the GO Time program by targeting female participants who have grown up playing wheelchair sports and putting them in mentorship roles.
Look for more information coming soon on our next GO Time program dates.
