Tag: Girls in Sport

The picture shows Millie Boo, a young person with cerebral palsy and bilateral hearing loss, sits atop her tall, brown horse on a dirt path.

Millie Boo: A Journey in Para Dressage

My riding and volunteering story
Hi, I am Millie Boo Smith. I am 20 years old and have cerebral palsy and bilateral hearing loss. I started horse riding as a form of therapy, and I am a Para Grade 2 Dressage Rider. I have my own horse George who is a retired ex racehorse, and I love riding, hacking, grooming and caring for him. I am also in my 2nd year at the University of Highlands and Islands studying a Business Equine Management degree which is interesting and very busy too.
I started volunteering for my local Riding for The Disabled Group for my Bronze Duke of Edinburgh award and then carried this on as I love it as I want to give back to the community like I was supported when I was younger. I currently have over 370 Saltire Volunteering hours and was named Horse Scotland and Active Stirling Young Volunteer of the year as well as being awarded an Inspire Award by Forth Valley Disability Sport. My journey has been participant to volunteer to coach in training whilst being on the RDA pathway. I help people from a local care home interacting with horses and help others have fun and enjoyment in their lessons.
My advice to anyone especially young women and girls is to try ANY form of sport regardless of your disability. If you would rather, you can volunteer which is so rewarding. You get to meet lovely people; you can make a difference in people’s lives and makes you feel like you are doing something worthwhile. It is about what makes you happy and never let anything hold you back. RDA motto is “It’s What You Can Do That Counts” and ‘#SheCanSheWIll
A group of young disabled people are pictured inside a speed boat.

Ellie: From Spectator to Sports Leader

Hi my name is Ellie W , I am 19 and my sport is rugby. I am part of the young start program. I started watching the men’s six nations every year with my dad as he used to play rugby when he was younger. I thought I’d love to play rugby one day and didn’t start playing until I was 17. My friend started playing for our local women’s team and suggested that I join and we both went along for our first training session. We could train but only started doing contact at 18.
When I went into high school my mum had suggested a sports programme that was run by SSF [Scottish Sports Futures] called Twilight. It was multisport. It helped me fall in love with sport before I got involved with playing rugby. A couple of months later there was a young leaders programme that was also run by SSF to help me coach young people in sport. My coach, Maciek, from SSF encouraged me to join my clan rugby team as a participant and then help out as a coach. I have been to events and schools to talk about the clan and encourage people to come along and try it.
Maciek told me about the Young Start programme and I had to submit it that day and it sounded like such a good opportunity for me and I signed up and was very excited as I was getting to meet new people , learn new skills , develop my skills and get my level 1 rugby coaching. I had online courses the first one was communications and the second one was human connections and then we had the young start/panel residential September weekend with wheels to water , getting to try other sports , we got to know each other through ice breaker challenges , we went trampolining , had food and hung out. We did the disability , advocacy and sport course in the morning and then in the afternoon we did boccia which was very fun. I have also got to do my first aid course through young start and passed