Where football and culture collide

The Faith Fashion Fusion exhibition is currently at Melbourne's Immigration Museum until June 9th. If the video below doesn't work head to the transcript on the museum's website.


Here's the ABC's coverage of the exhibition, and I was mentioned in a line in the Age's report (talking, naturally, about sport).

Of note in this year's Unity Cup: four women's teams, up from two last year.  The photo above is from the Western Bulldogs, who sponsored the team I played for in the tournament. There are more pics of the day at the AFL Multicultural Programs Facebook page and the AFL Victoria website.

My fellow AFC Asian Cup community ambassador Assmaah Helal and I were interviewed by SBS about FIFA lifting a ban on headscarves for players. Here's the link to the story online, and one to the printed version.

Privileged to address this forum by the Jewish Christian Muslim Association on religion and the media (and yes I have this unfortunate habit of turning everything into a way to talk about sport - so my brief presentation had one non-sporting example). My fellow panelists were former Age editor Michael Gawenda and seasoned religion reporter Barney Zwartz.

Prior to our talks/audience QnA session, we heard from Aksen Ilhan - she handles media for the awesome Turkish girls' youth group Sareera based at Meadow Heights mosque in Melbourne. Aksen told the audience about the group's media coverage and how they'd built a strong relationship with local reporters. She and the Sareera members have been pro-active in this area, asking me to run a media workshop with them and learning from each of their experiences with the media.


Oh, and these guys. Love these guys. So did the audience. The co-captains of the MUJU peace club (who won the Unity Cup in 2012 and were finalists this year) and co-recipients of the Hobsons Bay Citizen of the Year award presented an account of how they met as part of the Western Bulldog's More than a Game program and set up their unique footy team. (The Bulldogs followed up 'More than a Game' with their successful, recently concluded Generation M program.) They also joked that they recruited one of the day's panelists (me) for the MUJU women's side who played in the Unity Cup 2013 exhibition match. I rarely make cheesy and earnest statements - but seriously, when you come across young leaders like Joel Kuperholz and Oussama Abou-Zeid, you can't help but think there's so much hope for our country. 

Multicultural community ambassadors were recognised at this function held just before the TAC Cup finals at Etihad. This is the inaugural year of the AFL's multicultural community ambassador program and a bit of an experiment in how a program like this might run. It looks like it will continue, which is great news. On a personal level, Maryum and I were attached (through the program) to the North Melbourne Football Club and its values really align with ours (investing in the community, using sport as a vehicle for harmony, recognising education as a key factor in poverty reduction) so we're very keen to continue working with them next year, especially around getting more Muslim women and girls involved in sport.

Sometimes you inadvertently come across something that illustrates why stuff like the AFL Multicultural Program is important. I noticed the tweet above, addressed to my friend Mariam (and re-tweeted by her). It was about something that I was involved in and which obviously had an impact on those who saw it.

The tweet refers to a young girl playing in a hijab at the MCG. The girl was part of North Melbourne's multicultural Auskick group of about thirty children. I joined a couple of other AFL Multicultural Community ambassadors attached to North, to accompany the kids to the MCG by tram from Arden Street (North's home ground and training facility, as well as the home of the Huddle). My husband and footy-mad brother in law (and his equally footy-mad colleague) joined in. As you can imagine, it was quite a sight - a large-ish group of predominantly African kids carrying footballs and the community ambassadors, plus North Melbourne staff, decked in blue and white, on the tram to the MCG. Very Melbourne if you think about it.

The kids played at half time during the NMFC v Collingwood match which, sadly, was North's last game of the season, having missing out on a finals berth by the tiniest of margins.  But hey, the Pies lost, so there was something to celebrate.

Photo: jsawkins / Flickr

The AFL multicultural program wanted increased exposure to its work at VFL/TAC Cup and community levels and were on the lookout for an intern - an independent and driven journalism student, preferably in his/her last year. I pointed them in the direction of the RMIT journalism program, where I taught for six years from 2006-2012, and in particular my former colleague and good friend Alex Wake who is in charge of work placements there.