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    STAR: Change Our Game Women’s Gift winner Hayley Orman celebrates her triumph. Picture: PAUL CARRACHER

Money to level playing field

The running of Monday’s women’s gift at Stawell provided the State Government with an opportunity to add momentum to a push to ‘create a level playing field for women and girls in sport’.

Community Sport Minister Ros Spence said Australia’s elite female sprinters made their way to Central Park to compete in the Change Our Game Stawell Gift.

Hayley Orman, of Flagstaff Hill in Adelaide, won the event in a time of 13.876, off a handicap of 9.75 metres.

The $40,000 women’s gift offers the same amount of prizemoney as the men’s Powercor Stawell Gift.



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The government has provided $1.22-million across four years to ensure the future of the time-honoured Wimmera athletics carnival.

It established the Change Our Game program in 2017 to create a ‘level playing field for women and girls in sport’.

The provides a range of grant and funding programs to support women and girls across all levels of sport and recreation in Victoria.

Since it introduced the Change Our Game Scholarship in 2018, it has invested more than $1-million to help almost 200 Victorian women working and volunteering across all levels of sport and recreation to access professional development opportunities and training courses.

A Change Our Game Community Activation Program has funded 155 grants supporting community sport and recreation organisations to host community-level events that showcase and celebrate the role of women and girls in sport and active recreation.

Ms Spence said the Labor government had also led a board quota policy requiring peak sport and active-recreation organisations funded by Sport and Recreation Victoria to have 40 percent female representation.

“Change Our Game challenges gender stereotypes and delivers leadership opportunities for Victorian women and girls, and what better way to do that than through Australia’s most famous footrace,” she said.

Stawell Gift management committee chair Stephanie Spence added, “When we create environments and leadership roles where women have equal representation, everyone wins – I’m proud the Stawell Gift is leading the way.”

• For more on the Stawell Gift carnival, see sport.

 

The entire April 7, 2021 edition of The Weekly Advertiser is available online. READ IT HERE!