Our newest programme at AEC is the She Leads project. Over the course of the next three years we are committed to:

• Celebrating a ‘Woman of the month’. Each month we will choose a woman who has enjoyed incredible success and who leads as a role model impacting the thousands of people who look up to them.

• Delivering team talks/ seminars to each team in the programme concerning current and relevant issues, particularly those affecting younger females: Social media, body confidence, health and fitness, celebrating our talents, mental health and bullying.

• Creating opportunities for our young people to meet, talk to, and work with successful women from a variety of different career paths and disciplines.

• Arranging trips and events that allow our athletes to learn about, and celebrate, the work of successful women through history.

We are also delivering a Junior Leadership Programme, where we train a number of our older athletes how to coach both cheerleading and gymnastics. Our junior coaches are devoted to the programme and we want to ensure they get something back in the form of leader specific workshops, relevant coaching qualifications, and DBS certifications. We want our young people to feel a real sense of accomplishment in the hours they volunteer to the programme, but also give them the best possible opportunities in terms of experience gained and in their future employability.