About

The InMotion Network works in partnership to support, promote and facilitate opportunities for girls and women to participate in sport, physical activity and recreation. We are the only organization dedicated exclusively to the sport, physical activity and recreation needs of those who identify as girls and women of all ages in the province of Alberta.

Our Vision

We envision, and will cultivate, a network that recognizes equity is fundamental to ensuring those who identify as women and girls have the opportunity to meaningfully participate, in all of their diversity, as leaders, coaches, officials, athletes, participants and administrators in Alberta’s sporting, recreation, and physical activity systems.

Our Mission

The InMotion Network is an organization that aims to increase opportunities for individuals who have been, and continue to be, underserved by our sporting, recreation, and physical activity systems. While our focus is on removing barriers for those who identify as women and girls, we acknowledge that gender is just one of the many intersecting categories that contribute to exclusion. We have therefore adopted an intersectional approach, meaning all of our organizational activities and policies account for the ways gender intersects with race, class, sexual orientation, (dis)ability, religion, age and other identity markers to create different forms of discrimination and privilege.

Participation for All

Among girls who have participated in sport, there is a dramatic dropout rate observed with 1 in 3 girls leaving sport by late adolescence. By comparison, the dropout rate for teenage boys (aged 16-18) is only 1 in 10. Sport participation rates for Canadian girls decline steadily from childhood to adolescence with as many as 62% of girls not playing sport at all. (Rally Report, 2020)

The InMotion Network advocates that everyone should have the opportunity to grow from the benefits of being involved in sport and physical activity. These benefits range from empirically proven improvements in the broad health determinates that result from regular physical activity to the “soft skill” improvements related to improved communications and social interactions, and increased general self-efficacy; coping self-efficacy and scheduling self-efficacy.

Women and girls experience multiple barriers to participation of regular physical activity (cultural/religious constraints, financial limitations, familial restrictions, age, physical ability, opportunities/experience, individual or group perceptions and/or varied peer pressures).

In 2009, Sport Canada through Canadian Heritage introduced Actively Engaged: A Policy on Sport for Women and Girls, this policy provided a renewed direction for the leadership and programs of Canadian Heritage in promoting and developing a strengthened sport system where women and girls are full, active and valued participants and leaders, experiencing quality sport and equitable support. The Canada Sport Policy is set to be renewed in February 2023.

Did You Know?

The 2019 Alberta Survey on Physical Activity states that on average 64% of Albertans (as sampled) are sufficiently physically active to receive health benefits. This figure has remained consistent over the last decade. On the surface this shows that 64% of Albertans are sufficiently physically active, attention must be paid to other factors that influence the level of physical activity of women and girls in Alberta.