Giving to Support Women in Sport - International Women's Day
To celebrate International Women’s Day today, we’re spotlighting the Health and Performance Centre’s generous support of the She’s Got Game Initiative and Scholarship funding.
The Health and Performance Centre (HPC) recently established the HPC She’s Got Game Scholarship, a $4,500 annual scholarship that will be awarded yearly to a female UofG varsity athlete who is aspiring to work in the health sciences field.
In 2019-20 the scholarship was awarded to Gryphon women’s soccer player Victoria Hinchliffe. Post COVID-19 and without varsity sport this past year the HPC has not yet named a second recipient. The HPC Scholarship ideally supports women in science and considering a medical/allied career such as physiotherapy, medicine, chiropractic, or massage therapy.
For Jackie Sinkeldam, her initial involvement with She’s Got Game had a personal connection with her own daughter having aspirations to play varsity sport that sparked the initial concept.
The HPC was also an initial sponsor of the She’s Got Game events, and was happy to support a formal scholarship initiative. “These student-athletes have full time studies and training. This does not leave a lot of extra time, and for those students needing financial assistance, this was a way to support them so that they did not need to go and add to their full schedule a part time job."
Sinkeldam recognizes that sport provides a mental and physical outlet that contributes to overall well-being and health, which are both important to the UofG alum, “The ability to set goals, succeed, fail and persevere towards goals are life skills that are part of sport.”
She explained why the gap between funding for male and female sport hit home for her and why we need to ensure that women have the same opportunity to develop so that are on the same level playing field as their male peers in their career.
“You can’t help but be inspired by the women that have faced adversity in their sport and succeeded. The data shows a decline in sports for women as they move through high school, so the She’s Got Game initiative in particular provides motivation for all female athletes and inspires me.”
