A group of older women from Bradford’s Asian community are discovering the delight of physical activity through ping pong.

Around 40% of all women over the age of 16 are classed as ‘physically inactive’, with that number rising to 50% of all Asian women.

The Women Zone charity in Bradford wanted to do something about that in the local community and invested in a table tennis table, with fantastic results, as shown by the latest in our #PowerofPing series of inspirational films.

As one of the charity’s leaders said: “There’s no chance we were going to get them into a spin class, so we came up with a way of making it more fun and brought ping pong in.

“Once they play, you can see them becoming empowered and feeling ‘I can do this’ – and even competing as well. I played with my mum and I didn’t realise she was so competitive! I’m overwhelmed about how much it has impacted on the ladies.”

One of the players added: “Now that I come here, I engage with everyone else. I have some one to talk to and with the games, I have something to do rather than just sitting down, so it’s helped me.”

* The #PowerofPing campaign, launched to coincide with the 10th anniversary of Ping!, consists of a series of short films telling the stories of some of the inspirational projects and people involved in the programme. Click here to watch the other films released so far.

If you have been inspired to play, Ping! provides FREE family fun in thousands of public places around England – find out where you can play by clicking this button:

[button link=”https://www.pingengland.co.uk/#placestoplay”]Click here to find your nearest Ping! table[/button]