Heidelberg United and Preston Lions have been giving the Indigenous community a leg up this season with a program encouraging kids to play football.
The Deadly Kicks program, organised by Heidelberg coach Jamara Maza and Aboriginal Youth worker Nazaree Dickerson – both Indigenous Australians – ran for four weeks and concluded with a Gala day between the two clubs in early August.
Maza said the event was a fantastic initiative brought about in conjunction with the Banyule and Darebin councils and the Northland Youth Centre.
“We put together a program to increase participation for the Koori mob, just to try to get the kids experiencing playing, opening up another opportunity for them as well as engage with the Indigenous community, which is based in Heidelberg’s healing centre,” she said.
“Every Tuesday we would have a training session at Heidelberg, Wednesday evening at Preston.
“We made it so the Northland Youth Centre would take a bus around to pick up the kids – that’s been a barrier for a lot of Indigenous kids, getting to and from training.
“Afterwards we’d give a little meal and drop the kids off and everyone that walked away from the program received a pair of donated boots and the club strips.”
The response to the programs was overwhelmingly positive, with word of mouth from the community helping grow the program’s participation over the four weeks.
“It got bigger than we anticipated, only 10 initially registered but we ended up getting almost 35,” Maza said.
“We got feedback from the parents that the kids hadn’t been engaged with other sports until they tried this program.
“We also had kids that weren’t Indigenous come down. We had a Somali family who rocked up with three boys, we didn’t discourage any other kids from coming down and playing with us, and it just grew by word of mouth.
“For the Gala Day we invited the kids and parents down and had training sessions and a game, and Nazaree presented the kids with participation medals.
“We also had Melbourne City donate David Williams’ boots and by giving the kids Heidelberg and Preston club strips it made them feel part of the club.”
Maza, who started at Olympic Village as a 13-year-old and has progressed from talented junior to respected coach at the club, now wants to see Deadly Kicks become a yearly event, with discussions in place regarding future funding for the program.
“We did the evaluation after the program. Through the support of the council, it was a combined effort and that’s why it was so successful,” she said.
“There’s a second meeting to determine if we can get more funding to make this an annual event, we definitely want to make it an annual thing where we engage with the indigenous program.”