For some time now we have changed our language around how sport and other services engage with people in their communities. Words are important and so about a decade ago I heard a great speaker point out that the term Hard to Reach wasn’t accurate. Plenty of people and other organisations weren’t finding it difficult to reach some of the groups we described as ‘Hard to Reach’
As Ben Hilton explains in this blog on the Sport for Development Coalition blog
Working with 'hard to reach' communities is a phrase that is widely used in the Sport for Development sector and it’s one that we’ve used at the Trust for a number of years without really challenging what it means. Recently Tim Hollingsworth, Chief Executive of Sport England, shared a story about visiting a centre in a 'hard to reach' community in Oldham, where the local leader told him: “We are not hard to reach. We have been here for 20 years. You’ve just never tried”.
https://www.connectsport.co.uk/research/are-hard-reach-communities-really-hard-reach
So we don’t say Hard to Reach. It’s our problem not theirs. We need to try harder!