Playing to win

Dear friends,

Of the many things which Australians and Filipinos share in common, a love of sports is one of them – especially of basketball and football. In the next few months, both our countries will host and participate in the world’s biggest basketball and football events taking place this year.

First of all, next month Australia will co-host with New Zealand the largest ever FIFA Women’s Football World Cup to date, to be held from the 10th of July to the 20th of August. This is the first time that the tournament has been held in the Southern Hemisphere; and the first time that the tournament has been expanded from 24 to 32 teams.

I have personally congratulated the Filipinas Women’s Football team, coaches and management on qualifying for the FIFA Women’s World Cup – another first. It’s a great accomplishment for these amazing athletes, to make history for Philippine sports. While my heart lies first of all with the Australian team the Matildas, captained by superstar Chelsea forward Sam Kerr OAM, the second team I will be dearly cheering for is the Filipinas!

The week after the FIFA Women´s World Cup ends, the Philippines will join Japan and Indonesia in co-hosting the FIBA Men’s World Cup starting this August.

Australia is drawn in the group stages in Japan, but if we make it through to the quarter-finals (and we really hope this occurs as Australia is currently ranked number 3 in the world!), then we will look forward to having the Aussie Boomers play here alongside the Gilas in Manila!

I am sure many Filipinos will also be excited to see the Boomers play, the extended squad having ten current NBA players, including veterans Patty Mills AM, Joe Ingles and Matthew Dellavedova, established players Matisse Thybulle, Jock Landale, Josh Green, recent NBA champion Jack White and rising stars Josh Giddey, Dyson Daniels and Xavier Cooks.

Many of you would know that Patty Mills is a national hero in Australia: He led the Boomers to our historic bronze medal at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo and I had the pleasure of seeing this in person as I was working in Japan at that time as Australia’s deputy ambassador. He is the first Aussie of indigenous heritage to win an NBA championship and he has been awarded the distinguished honor of a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) medal.

Beyond the game, Mills has used his platform to celebrate what in his words is Australia’s “beautiful and unique culture” and has become a role model for many young Australians. Mills’ family is instrumental in the Indigenous Basketball Australia (IBA), a program which works with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people to be proud of their culture and identity, and to pursue their goals on and off the basketball court.

Beyond just the major tournaments though, sport at all levels has the power to transform lives, especially for young people. What Kerr, Mills and other athletes are doing is showing us that small investments in sports programs pay large dividends, including in achieving development goals.

We see this in the Philippines in Australian aid-supported projects like the Fairplay for All Foundation that runs a football and education program for children living in proximity of the Payatas Controlled Disposal Facility in Manila. Australia’s support helped build Fairplay’s Payatas Sports Center, which provided a safe space for underprivileged youth.

In Davao, the Touch Rugby: A Sport for All program run by the Philippine Rugby Football Union promotes inclusiveness, bringing together student athletes from different communities and backgrounds to play side-by-side and learn the value of leadership, teamwork, fair play and discipline at an early age. Australia provided a grant which was used to deliver the touch rugby sports program to 16,000 public elementary and high school students with equal male-female participation across 340 public elementary and high schools in Davao City.

Sports provides leadership pathways, especially for women and girls. In Cebu, the Australia-supported FundLife Leadership Academy for Girls Advancement and Protection Project teaches both sport and life skills to girls in vulnerable communities. The program helps improve self-esteem, self-worth and confidence levels of the young athletes to be future leaders, as well as improve mental health from sport and physical activity.

Sports also provides a platform to tackle serious social concerns. Football for Humanity is an innovative campaign to prevent online sexual abuse and exploitation of children through targeted sports activities. Through the embassy’s Direct Aid Program, we are supporting the foundation to train coaches to create more innovative sports activities to teach children their rights while creating livelihood opportunities for families.

Sports is also a powerful tool to promote the rights of persons with disabilities through adaptive sports. The Australian embassy is proud of our long-standing support to the Philippine Accessible Disability Services Inc (PADS). PADS is a Cebu-based organization that aims to make the Philippines a disability-inclusive society through various platforms, including adaptive sports. Australia’s assistance has helped PADS acquire various types of adaptive sports equipment (kayaks, paddles, life vests and basketball and race wheelchairs) and conduct a series of adaptive sports clinics. It also includes the purchase of a dragon boat, state of the art paddles and flotation devices to support PADS’ dragon boat team. The team is consistently successful in international dragon boat competitions. In July 2022, PADS won four gold medals in the 13th International Dragon Boat Federation, Club Crew World Championships. Their win provides inspiration and enhances the capability of aspiring young athletes with disability to engage in sports and participate in large competitions.

Australia’s most recent support is for the construction of an Adaptive and Recreational Sports and Rehabilitation Center in Pajara Park. The initiative is implemented in partnership with the Mandaue City government, which is providing the space and the utilities for its operation. We hope that this will open the doors to train young people with disabilities to learn and practice sports.

The media also plays an important role in shaping the sports industry. When I arrived a year ago as Ambassador, the first journalists I met face to face were in fact the alumnae of our Women in News and Sports (WINS) mentoring program. The journalists – from veteran broadcasters like Patricia Bermudez-Hizon, now herself a WINS trainer, to national athlete-turned reporters like Denise Tan –  are bound by their passion to reshape the landscape of sports journalism in the country.

In fact, since 2018, we have hosted over 30 Filipina women journalists from the major media networks across TV, online and print to spend time together in the Philippines or Australia, to strengthen relationships and share experiences.

So, as we come together to cheer the Australian and Filipino teams at the FIFA and FIBA World Cups, let’s remember that sport is not only a great platform for us to come together on the field, but also something that brings our nations closer together off the field through the many great programs we are working together on!

Yours truly,

HK

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HK Yu is the Australian Ambassador to the Philippines. You can follow Ambassador Yu on Twitter @AusAmbPH.