In 2009, members of the organising committee for the local White Ribbon Day campaign came up with a novel approach to get the local sporting community involved in taking action to re-set the bar of community expectations about appropriate treatment of women and girls.

The White Ribbon Sports Challenge, an initiative that aims to encourage and help the local sporting community to demonstrate they know how to treat women and girls with respect, was launched on November 19, with the CA Brumbies and CFMEU Raiders hitting it out in a cross-code game of touch to decide just who was the best footy code in town and showing great support for an important cause.

In a nutshell, all we are asking the local sporting community to do is:

1.  Run some activities that will help promote a fun, friendly and safe environment for women and girls

2.  Tell us about it so we can make a big deal of it on this website

3.  Outdo each other to win an award on White Ribbon Day this year (November 25)

The Challenge is designed to get men and boys involved in sport in the ACT region personally engaged in making the local sport environment fun, friendly and safe for women and girls. It also aims to promote positive attitudes about acceptable behaviour towards women and girls and get men and boys talking about and making a commitment to respectful relationships.

Imagine a sporting community where all the blokes treat each other and all the women and girls with respect. Imagine a sporting culture where everyone gets along, where women and girls are equally welcomed, where everyone feels safe and included, where administrators can focus on developing their sport rather than cleaning up after players who do the wrong thing, and where no woman or girl has to fear or experience violence or abuse. It would be great to belong to this type of sporting community. This Challenge is about showing that the ACT sporting community can be that type of community.

 

It's all about being good blokes

At its core, this Challenge is about men involved in sport being ‘good blokes’, not because they have to but because they want to. Being a ‘good bloke’ means being someone who treats all people with respect, who treats women well, who women and girls feel safe around, and who doesn’t silently stand by if he sees his mates or anyone else treating women and girls badly.
 
This Challenge will have a positive impact on everyone who gets involved, but especially on the women and girls who are involved in our sports (players, coaches and officials) and the women and girls who are involved in our lives (girlfriends, wives, mums, friends, sisters and daughters).

If you've read this far you're probably wondering what you should do. Check out the 'Get started' section for some ideas.