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Gender Equality

In recent decades, gender quality has become a central theme in our daily lives. A strong movement developed to improve women's lives and work in many parts of the world. Of course, CSIT also supports this development and tries to counteract the problem of gender inequality with the help of sports.

Catch'n Serve Ball, THE SHOWCASE INITIATIVE 

Recently, the International Catch’n Serve Ball Sport Federation (ICSBF) was founded as a worldwide sports umbrella organization by CSIT, AICS (Italy), TUL (Finland), HLA (Croatia), Mamanet Austria and Mamanet Italy, with a democratic structure that is aimed at all those who have already played the sport of Cachibol, which originated in South America, or who want to start playing "Catch'n Serve Ball."

The claim "Play, catch, connect for equality in sport!" is intended to appeal to new target groups. The focus on women and mothers is also extended to all family members. "Serve" doesn't just mean serving the ball and playing on, but also using this sport to support those groups in the countries, that are needed for equality in sport. These are essential measures that the CSIT has planned for the near future.

The team game, Cachibol, associated with Catch'n Serve Ball, is easily learnable, without prior sporting experience at any age, sex and, regardless of height and weight. The ball, net, and field sizes are adapted from Volleyball, making organizing Catch'n Serve Ball events straightforwardly. However, Catch'n Serve Ball is recognized as a sport with its own rights and identity, distinct from its inspirations.

ICSBF aims to promote and develop the sport of Catch'n Serve Ball and access to team-sports, in particular Catch'n Serve Ball, an easily accessible team-sport in which the ball is - technically speaking - caught and thrown over the net to the opponent. The new federation is also primarily aimed at promoting equality in sports, as underlined by its objectives:

  • Promoting physical activity, health awareness and social networking, among women and mothers as well as all participants;
  • To create the best possible equal framework conditions for all, in the sense of gender mainstreaming
  • Promote relationships through sport, physical activity and health issues, notably including educational aspects such as fair-play values
  • Develop community aspects such as help and assistance between families within the scope of sports, physical activity and health issues
  • Support the role model effect within the family with regard to sports, health promotion, social aspects and prevention of violence
  • Counteract the drop-out in sports activities of mothers after starting a family
  • Promote women networks
  • Supporting the integration of people of different cultures, religious or ethnic origins into the lie of the association and the reduction of related prejudices

EU co-funded project EUMamanet

    The Mamanet movement is an innovative model that seeks to change the existing status of women in the field of sports. Its primary tool for achieving this is to involve more women in the world of grassroots sport. Since December 2022, CSIT, under the leadership of AiCS (Italy) is involved into EUMamanet project. To this end, the EU Mamanet project aims to develop and embrace the Mamanet movement in countries where it already exists, as well as create such a movement in countries where it is still new.

    In the following we provide further links and documents that can help promote Gender Equality in sports. All of the following pictures function as links.

    IOC Gender Equality Review Project & Framework

    The IOC Executive Board launched the IOC Gender Equality Review Project already in 2017 with a mandate to push gender equality globally with action-oriented recommendations for change. In its main part, the document gives 25 recommendations in the themes "Sport", "Portrayal", "Funding", "Governance" and "HR, Monitoring & Communications".

    Through the Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sex variations the IOC seeks to promote a safe and welcoming environment for everyone involved in elite-level competition, consistent with the principles enshrined in the Olympic Charter. The Framework also acknowledges the central role that eligibility criteria play in ensuring fairness, particularly in high-level organised sport in the women’s category.

    Goal 5 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals

    Promoting Gender Equality is a fundamental part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which are an important part of the Articles of our confederation. Goal 5 explicitely deals with this topic and offers knowledge and support.

    UN Women Gender-Responsive Sports Organizations

    The United Nations' entity UN Women developed a paper to help strengthening the role of women in sports. The guidelines are structured to support sports organizations in terms of empowerment of women and girls and advancement of gender equality through concrete and quantifiable actions and indicators. They aim to mobilize action on gender equality in day-to-day and overall operations.

    EIGE Gender Equality Training

    The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) provides a comprehensive toolkit for Gender Equality Training. This provides participants with the relevant knowledge, skills and values that allow them to contribute to the effective implementation of the gender-mainstreaming strategy in their field, organisation, institution or country.

    TAFISA Gender Equality

    Our partner TAFISA commits itself to target gender balance in sport, promote and support male and female sports equally and encourage girls to participate in sports. The organization published helpful best practises on their webiste and offers further links.