Sydney Swans join teams in delivering message of equality for International Women's Day

 August 08, 2019

Social leadership in the community is important to the Sydney Swans, a professional Australian rules football club that plays in the Australian Football League, and they wanted to help forge a balance for better using their focus and influence both on and off the football field.

Supporting the International Women's Day #BalanceforBetter campaign, the Sydney Swans came together with AFL NSW/ACT and cross town rivals, GWS Giants to show their support for forging women's equality within the community.

A powerful message about gender equality

All three organisations used the same script in their content to show a united front for IWD 2019.

In their content piece, the Sydney Swans wanted to engage their players and employees to convey a powerful message about gender equality - so they created an impressive International Women's Day video aimed at engaging their community.

"Women make a tremendous contribution to our football Club. This International Women's Day join our players and staff in spreading the message #BalanceforBetter," tweeted the Sydney Swans alongside their International Women's Day video.

Creatively conveying an important message in different ways

The teams conveyed their messages in different ways using their own creativity and emotion. With the Sydney Swans video the team focused on the face of the person delivering each line so the words were the focus as well as the male and female voices coming together to deliver the message, which connected with the audience.

AFL NSW/ACT engaged members of the local AFL NSW/ACT community to deliver their script alongside members of the QBE Sydney Swans Youth Girls Academy and the Giants used representatives from their AFLW side.

"This International Women's Day, join AFL NSW/ACT, the Sydney Swans and the Greater Western Sydney Giants  & Football Club in ensuring that balance isn't something that is just stuck on the footy field," echoed a  tweet by the official Twitter account of the AFL in New South Wales (NSW) and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT).

Valuing diversity in sport 

"Women make a tremendous contribution to our football Club. This International Women's Day join our players and staff in spreading the message #BalanceforBetter," tweeted the Sydney Swans alongside their International Women's Day video.

"This International Women's Day, join AFL NSW/ACT, the Sydney Swans and the Greater Western Sydney Giants in ensuring that balance isn't something that is just stuck on the footy field," echoed a further tweet by the official Twitter account of the AFL in New South Wales (NSW) and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT).

Watch the engaging AFL NSW/ACT video here.

Meanwhile the Giants posted on their Facebook page: ‘Balance: part of football, part of life. This International Women's Day, the theme is 'Balance for Better', and that's what we're all striving towards.’ Watch their video here.

Further sporting groups rallied behind International Women's Day Balance for Better campaign 

These football teams were among many sporting groups worldwide that promoted messages of equality among their communities.

Of further specific note was Cricket Australia that developed an engaging video featuring not only the views of children regarding equality in sport, but of Australian international cricketer Meg Lanning who captains the Australian women's national team. 

Netball Australia also prmoted the #BalanceforBetter campaign to their wider community.

And around the world many further groups rallied together to support the International Women's Day #BalanceforBetter campaign theme to show their commitment to helping forge women's equality.