AFL Toyota Premiership 2011

 
Australian Football has the capacity to bring people together from diverse cultural backgrounds. With this in mind, the AFL is working closely with state football bodies 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 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 10 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 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

• Twenty percent of Australians were born in another country, of whom more than half came to Australia from non-English speaking nations. Combined with their Australian-born children, they constitute 43 percent of the population.
• By 2025 overseas born families will outnumber locally born families and by 2049 Australia’s population is expected to grow to 35 million, the majority of this increase will come from migrant sources. Two thirds will continue to come from Asian nations.
• In 2009, the number of permanent and long-term migrants arriving in Australia has soared to more than 500,000 a year.
• Multicultural Australians have economic clout. Their spending power has doubled since 1991 and is now over $58 billion a year.
• Sydney and Melbourne more than 50% of the population is born overseas or has one or more parents born overseas.

AFL Multicultural Program:

• In 2011 implemented the multicultural schools program in over 300 schools
• Ten Multicultural development officers employed by the AFL
• Over 25,000 multicultural people visited a AFL game through the Multicultural program and for most it was their first AFL game
• The Multicultural Academy Camp took place reaching 500 trialists and (80 camp attendees)
• World team competed in the National Under 16’s Championships for a second time
• Conducted 12 Australian Citizenship ceremonies in 2011
• Multicultural Program nominated for the prestigious Beyond Sport international awards
• Enhanced relationships with Multicultural Media
• AFL Media accreditation organised for Turkish Report, Sameway Newspaper (China), Neos Kosmos Newspaper (Greek), and Ambassador Newspaper (African and Arabic), SBS Radio and 3ZZZ. Extensive media coverage in Arabic press and radio. SBS TV and Radio, Sri Lankan, Indian, and Japanese press
• Seven hundred children from the Multicultural Schools Football Program participated in half time NAB  AFL Auskick Rules and Grid Games
• Sixty-eight schools and 3990 participants visited the National Sports Museum and toured the MCG
• Established fifteen new NAB AFL Auskick centres with 1250 participants
• Eight hundred and fifty students involved in Multicultural Schools Cup
• Thirty-seven separate tours conducted at AFL Club venues reaching 1100 participants
• Distributed 5,000 Auskick Footballs to students throughout Victoria participating in the Multicultural Schools Football Program