Inspiring Minds seeks to broaden awareness and impact of graduate student research, while enhancing transferable skills. Students were challenged to describe their research, scholarship or creative activity in 150 or fewer words to share with our community.
Before a woman can enterprise in sport, she must feel safe in sport
As Batswana and women in sport, my research team and I know how difficult it is for women in Botswana to build sustainable careers in sport. Social entrepreneurship is lauded as an effective way for African women to achieve economic empowerment and fulfil social deficiencies in their communities. Namely, social entrepreneurship in sport (SES) allows women to circumvent the lack of support they receive from the government and the male-dominated sport industry. Our research sort to explore the environment of SES for Batswana women, but we quickly discovered that ‘before a woman can enterprise in sport, she must feel safe in sport’. Our research shows that for Batswana women in sport, ‘safety’ is not just protection from physical harm. Safety is ‘security’ – feeling a sense of belonging and acceptance. We therefore propose a gender-specific safe-guarding policy that promotes a safe environment for the cultivation of SES for Batswana women.
Denise Kamyuka
PhD candidate, Kinesiology (Global Health Systems in Africa)
Faculty of Health Sciences - Western University
Supervisor
Laura Misener
Denise Kamyuka is a PhD candidate in the School of Kinesiology at Western University. She is studying Sport Management and Leadership. As a former basketball player for Botswana’s National team, Denise has partnered with other former and current national athletes in Botswana to do research on social entrepreneurship for women in sport, in Botswana. Denise is the former racial equity and inclusivity commissioner for the Society of Graduate Students (SOGS), the graduate student government at Western University. Denise continues to serve on the EDID working group and EDID committee with the School of Postgraduate Studies and the Faculty of Health Sciences, respectively. Denise also works as a research assistant on Project Echo, a research project designed to amplify the voices of people with disabilities, when it pertains to their experiences and views about physical activity in Ontario, CA and Scotland, UK.
You can connect with Denise on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/denise-kamyuka-a2630332/ and on the Sport Management website: https://www.uwo.ca/fhs/sportmgt/people/students/phd/kamyuka_d.html.
View Denise’s work as it appears in the Inspiring Minds Digital Collection: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/inspiringminds/290/