The Northern Football League has joined forces with AFL Victoria, the Somali Australia Council of Victoria, Banyule City Council, the Australian Sports Commission and the Collingwood Football Club in a new multi-cultural football/umpiring program.
The program hopes to involve youth from multi-cultural backgrounds, particularly those with a Somali background, in Australian Rules Football and in particular provide them with opportunities to take up boundary umpiring.
On Saturday, December 14 a group of 18 Somali young men, largely from Heidelberg West, were taken to the Westpac Centre, the home of the Collingwood Football Club. The program for their visit included:
• A guided tour of the Centre and its training facilities
• An introduction to the modified game of AFL 9s – followed by a match.
• Talks by former Western Bulldogs champion Lindsay Gilbee and experienced NFL senior umpire Michael Ryan.
The benefits of pursuing careers in Australian Rules, either as a player or an umpire, were explained to the boys.
During the program the boys were introduced to a number of Collingwood players. The program concluded with a barbeque which current champion Collingwood defender Heritier Lumumba attended and informally chatted with the boys.
Next step
It is proposed that the next step in the program is to run a multi-cultural family sports day involving both the North Heidelberg Football Club and the Heidelberg Stars Soccer Club, the membership of which is largely Somali. It is proposed to hold this in February or March 2014.
The aim is to strengthen multi-cultural ties in the Heidelberg West area to interest Somali youth to take up boundary umpiring in the NFL.
