AFL Toyota Premiership 2009

Welcome To Australian Football

The primary objective of the AFL Multicultural Program is to assist migrant and refugee communities to access Australian Football whether that is as a player, fan, administrator or umpire. With this in mind a Multicultural Unit has been established within the AFL Game Development department to achieve this objective. We want Australian Football to be a vehicle that encourages community strengthening and inclusion within the wider Australian community.

“The football world needs to recognise that providing meaningful opportunities for people from migrant and refugee communities to participate in all levels of football whether that is as players, umpires, involved in decision making or becoming fans of the game is our collective challenge. How well we do this will determine the health of the game in years to come.”

Nick Hatzoglou AFL Multicultural Program Manager.

About The AFL Multicultural Football Program

The AFL recognises that Australian Football has the capacity to bring people together from diverse cultural backgrounds. With this in mind, the AFL is working closely with AFL Victoria to build strong working relationships with many diverse communities to identify barriers and to develop strategies to encourage involvement.

A range of resources and programs have been developed to help local leagues and clubs located within diverse communities to take action to ensure that their activities are welcoming and inclusive to create safe and healthy family friendly football environments for people from culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) communities.

The Multicultural Program has 7 Multicultural Development Officers (MDO’s) based in Victoria, Western Australia and South Australia. This enables the AFL and the AFL clubs to reach more people in the community and add value and quality to all our initiatives. The MDO’s are based at and working closely with AFL clubs as identified above to deliver programs encouraging participation in Australian Football within multicultural communities and schools across greater Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and some rural areas.

The program aims to introduce young people from targeted culturally and linguistically diverse communities to Australian Football and to influence mainstream Australian Football clubs to embrace multicultural diversity as part of their ongoing operations.

Highlights

• The AFL Multicultural Football Schools Program (MFSP) has been implemented in 102 schools (78 Primary, 15 Secondary and 6 English Language Schools, 3 AMES Centres and exposed 8311 students to Australian Football. Each student has participated in 6 lessons as well as receiving the Schools Workbook Resource.
• 4,500 footballs were given out to students commencing their schooling within the English Language Centres as part of the State Governments “Welcome to Victoria kits”.
• The Victorian Multicultural Commission Community Accord was signed by Andrew Demetriou and is proudly on display in the AFL House front foyer.
• Extensive participation in government initiatives including Harmony Day and Cultural Diversity Week.
• 21,000 people have visited an AFL game, most for the first time.
• Establishment of Multicultural Program Ambassadors – Harry O’Brien, Rhyce & Heath Shaw, Andrew Welsh, Adam Ramanauskas, Daniel Giansaracusa and Bashar Houli.
• 90 separate AFL player visits have been made to schools with 2 or more players at each visit.
• 3,600 attended - Jason McCartney ‘Your Destiny is a matter of choice” seminar. Four seminars conducted.
• AFL Themed Round “Welcome to The AFL” conducted in Round 12, 2006.
• Resources developed:
  • Welcome to the AFL - School Resource Workbook, 15,000 copies.
  • Welcome to the AFL - Australian Football explained in 17 languages, 125,000 copies.
• 200 children participated in 4 AFL games at half time on the MCG and Telstra Dome.
• 5,500 students visited AFL World and 1400 students visited the MCG as part of official tours.
• Access to AFL Club facilities such as Lexus Centre, Whitten Oval, Waverley Park and Punt Road where players deliver a life skill message, tours of training rooms and none public areas.
• Allocation of apparel, signed items and fundraising opportunities to individuals and organisations promoting diversity and involvement of CALD young people.
• AFL Media accreditation organised for Salam Café (Ch 31 show highlighting young people and Muslim religion), Turkish Report, Sameway magazine (China), Neos Kosmos (Greek), Infoway magazine (China) and Ambassador Newspaper (African and Arabic). The media accreditation ensures ethnic media are able to gain access to all AFL games and media conferences to cover Australian Football.
• Media coverage has been encouraging. Exposure with SBS, Ch 31, Ch 9, Ch 10, ABC, SBS Radio, the Age, Herald Sun, Ethnic media (Sameway, Turkish News, Infoway magazine, Neos Kosmos Ambassador) has been obtained.

The Multicultural Program (MP) is a joint initiative between the AFL, AFL Victoria, Victorian Government and the Federal Government through the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

 For further information please do not hesitate to contact one of our Multicultural Development Officers or myself on Ph: (03) 9643 1928 or email: nick.hatzoglou@afl.com.au