New AFL Indigenous program helping young students kick goals

It's the AFL's Indigenous round this weekend and the Greater Western Sydney Giants has relaunched a program helping Indigenous school kids realise their dreams. The pathways program is exposing them to role models and teaching them life skills so they can kick on with their education.

Source: SBS

16-year-old Jesse O'Conner from Sydney's West is receiving cooking lessons at the headquarters of the Greater Western Sydney Giants AFL team.

He doesn't necessarily want to become a chef but he's one of dozens of kids the Giants are helping teach life skills.

"I want to be a rugby or AFL player and if that doesn't work out I'll fall back into being a mechanic," he says.

Jesse is taking part in the Young Indigenous Pathways Program which teaches Indigenous students skills like healthy eating, goal setting and leadership.

The program - the brainchild of the National Aboriginal Sporting Chance Academy (NASCA) in conjunction with the Giants - also exposes the students to mentoring and role models.

Ali Faraj, the club's Head of Community, says both organisations aim to push Indigenous kids taking part in the program closer to their dreams.

"We try to build an aspiration within young people's minds and lives to say, you know what, if I want to become something, if I want to do something, I can do it. But I guess what's most important for us is to show them the way of achieving what they want to achieve," Mr Faraj says.

Since its inception in 2013, the program has included 78 participants.

Last year NASCA redesigned the program, with input from schools, parents and the community, to better align with the school curriculum and deliver on school premises.

Jarrod Pickett is a young forward with the Giants who hails from the Noongar tribe in Western Australia.

He says the program - run one day per week during school hours - is about improving the readiness of Indigenous students for exams, skilled training or employment.

"Finishing school is probably a big thing for a lot of Indigenous kids and once they do that they can look at other options. My mum was 31 when she went to university and she's a lawyer now. So the more you dream the more successful you can be," says Pickett, who, along with Nathan Wilson, acts as a GWS mentor to the kids taking part in the program.

There's also a focus on acknowledging and celebrating Indigenous heritage - perhaps timely with the AFL's Indigenous round this weekend.

Valuable lessons for young Jesse O'Connor: "Learning the things they've said it's really inspired me to do what I want to do and chase my dreams."