Transcript

Ali Oliver

So I was a PE teacher and I think I was a role model for maybe ten, fifteen per cent of the kids that I taught because I represented a certain, you know, way of engaging with sport. And young people themselves are now role models for each other and in fact they are probably the most powerful role models.

Interviewer

And does that reel in that other eighty-five per cent, do you think?

Ali Oliver

If we take our girls active programme, it is completely designed around finding the least active young women who potentially have the greatest impact on their peers. They’re the influencers, they’re the heart of the social group.

Interviewer

The cynics in the class.

Ali Oliver

Absolutely. But what we know is those young women are incredibly powerful in the peer groups. So we need to work intensively with them rather than ignoring them or viewing them as the problem, they are the solution.

Interviewer

So bottom-up role models rather than top-down?

Ali Oliver

Absolutely. Quite right. Well, you need both. You need both. Because of course there is young people with a whole range of interests. But we shouldn’t just assume that the role models have to come from the elite community.