On the green grass of Richie Benaud Oval in North Parramatta in late November, around 20 children lined up to kick a rugby League ball towards the goalposts.
On the sidelines, parents stood by watching the training session, which was organised by the New South Wales Rugby League, and run in a number of culturally diverse Sydney suburbs.
Leba Bounassif and his wife Janette stood watching as their eight-year-old daughter Angelina and her four-year-old brother Jayden took part in the seminar.
The Bounassif family, who is of Lebanese origin, is among a number of families who took part in the session, including a newly-immigrated family from Pakistan, as well as families from India, Italy and others.
The initiative began in 2018 in Bankstown, says Tracy Edmundson, spokeswoman for the New South Wales Rugby League.
She said the inaugural staging of the sessions highlighted that there was an appetite for the sport among children of Indian descent.
This encouraged the organisation to expand in 2019 to include several other western Sydney neighbourhoods such as The Ponds, Parramatta and Minchinbury where children come from diverse cultural backgrounds, including Arabic, Indian and Filipino.
After the first year, the state government contacted the organisation to offer support.
Source: SBS
“Not only that we were approached by the state government through the multicultural minister, they had seen our program and they see the idea in a fantastic way, in terms of breaking down barriers and in terms of social inclusion. There is an opportunity for the federal government to get the CALD community and children from this community, who were not been active before, to get involved in some sort of sport,” Ms Edmundson said.
Although supporting the integration of immigrants into society and teaching children the fundamentals of the sport are the main goals of the initiative, it’s not the end game.
Migrants from CALD backgrounds may follow sports they knew from their homeland, just as Osama Wajed, the father of two boys who took part in the seminar, said.
“Rugby isn’t big in Pakistan. We used to watch cricket and football.”
It’s a gap that the sport is increasingly focused on.
Hassan and Hamza moved to Australia a year ago as migrants from Pakistan Source: SBS
National Rugby League team, the Parramatta Eels is looking for new ways to increase the number of members to the club who come from a particular diverse cultural background, according to a report by the Sydney Morning Herald.
There is a large demand for participation in the club from the Indian community, as the team statistics, revealed that 21 per cent of the club's members and fans are born outside of Australia.
New South Wales Rugby League is hoping to build on this foundation.
“There is also evidence for changing demographics in all of the communities and sports is always a great vehicle for social inclusion," Ms Edmundson said.
“It creates some opportunity for parents. Their kids are playing sports, and they get to know other parents, they might get involved in the club, in a volunteer capacity or on a barbeque. They might even decide they will take up coaching or refereeing. This integrates them into society in another way - in a friendly non-threatening environment.”
For many immigrants, rugby League is a sport they’re not familiar with when arriving in Australia.
It’s a passion they learn over time, said Roche Patel, an Australian of Indian origin, who celebrated ten years of membership at the Eels.
His passion for the club is so strong that he has even encouraged his five-year-old daughter Miraya to play.
"I go with my daughter for all the matches, we like the general atmosphere, chants and colours of the shirts, and we watch together, she loves the game a lot and will continue with this program.”
