Inclusive Sports Award: A commitment to diversity in sailing and boating from RYA Northern Ireland

RYA Northern Ireland are proud to announce we are currently working in partnership with Disability Sport NI to achieve the Inclusive Sports Award.

The Inclusive Sports Award recognises a commitment to ensuring that sailing and boating is a welcoming, accessible and inclusive sport for everyone.

In working towards achieving this award, there are seven different sections for us as an organisation to review and action. These are:

1. Organisation
2. Workforce
3. Athlete Pathway
4. Coach Education
5. Inclusive Clubs
6. Inclusive Communications 
7. Inclusive Facilities

We are proud of the work being done to achieve this award, but it is just one of a number of steps we have taken to make sailing and boating more inclusive.

When we launched our five-year strategy, Navigating the Future, in 2023, we set out the goal of increasing the diversity of the Northern Irish sailing and boating community.  On top of this, we recently appointed Oran Young as our Sailability Officer. Oran is the first ever person to be employed in this role, meaning we will be able to work more closely with clubs and Sailability centres than ever before, helping them to improve their accessibility or assisting them in boosting membership.

Oran's appointment is a result of The National Lottery’s Access to Resilience Fund and we would like to thank The National Lottery for their trust and support to help develop this area of sailing in Northern Ireland.

We can all play our part to help improve accessibility in sailing and boating and there are resources on the Disability Sport NI website to assist in doing this.

If you have questions about improving accessibility at your club or are interested in how to introduce a Sailability programme, contact our Sailability Officer oran.young@rya.org.uk