The Grassroots award celebrates the women breaking down barriers and bringing together their communities to find the joy in playing sport and getting active.

 

Someone who inspires others to find the joy in physical activity, while breaking down the barriers to being active, like a fear of not being good enough.

 

The 2023 nominees are;

Aimee Rees

 

Aimee is a cricket coach in Wales who has had a profound impact on the sport. She is currently Women’s & Girls’ Pathway Lead at Cricket Wales, but her work goes above and beyond her title.

 

Aimee has transformed cricket in Wales for women and girls with her hard work and dedication, running the sport virtually on her own as well as maintaining another job before she took up a full-time post last year with Glamorgan and Cricket Wales.

 

 

Annie Zaidi

Annie is a football coach who uses football to increase opportunities for girls, particularly South Asian Muslim girls like herself. After 10 years of coaching, she’s now set up the AnnieZ Coaching Foundation, to act as a stepping stone for girls to play football. It’s a free, 12-week programme that provides young women and girls long-term technical skills, and a personal development plan.

 

Her ethos is to empower, inspire and encourage girls, particularly from black and South Asian backgrounds, to fulfil their dreams.

 

 

Lisa Dickinson

 

Lisa, a kayaker, has been on an incredible journey. In 2016, she couldn’t swim, she was scared of water and had never been in a kayak. The two things she hated the most were water and the cold. There were some days she would be sick at the side of a river when she was starting out. She now kayaks on white water for fun and is a qualified paddlesports instructor and white water leader.

 

Lisa became a #ShePaddles Ambassador, in 2021. The movement is helping to close the gap between men and women and girls participation in the paddlesport community. Becoming an ambassador enabled her to share her passion for paddlesport with other women.

 

 

June Kelly MBE

 

June has dedicated 23 years of her life to grassroots football in the UK. She has been the Regional Support Officer at Sported UK for 13 years, and in that time grassroots football initiatives, especially for young girls, have flourished and continue to pop up across the country.

 

Growing frustrated with the lack of facilities in her local area of Cheetham Hill (which is in the bottom 2 per cent most deprived areas in the country), June set up and runs a thriving junior team called the Abraham Moss Warriors, using football to promote numeracy and literacy, and to steer local youngsters away from gangs, drugs and crime.

 

 

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