The Australian Government has extended its sport-for-development program ‘Team Up’, which promotes community-level development in Samoa and across the Pacific, for an additional two years.

This initiative supports six programs with six different sporting organisations in Samoa. This includes the major sports associations Lakapi Samoa, Samoa International Cricket Association (SICA), Football Federation Samoa (FFS), Rugby League Samoa (RLS), Netball Samoa, and Women in News and Sports (WINS).

The partners gathered together with media representatives to form connections and networks in order to allow coverage of their long work plan for the next two years.

The communications specialist with the Team Up Program, Aaron Ballekom believes that this was a wonderful opportunity to further their work in Samoa and the Pacific.

“This is the Australian Government’s Sport for Development Program in the Pacific. There are five programs in Samoa that use sport to transform people’s lives.”

This week they will have workshops with their five partners to try and build capacity in how to monitor and report the impacts they are having in the community.

“Before Team Up, the Australian Government had another program called the Pacific Sports Partnership which focused on utilizing sport for health and beating non-communicable diseases," Mr. Ballekom.

"This newer program was designed to use sports to promote gender equality and disability inclusion. We are ensuring community-level development for women, girls, and people with disability get access to sport and opportunities to excel both on and off the field.”

Team Up supports programs across the region in Fiji, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, and the Solomon Islands joining sometime this year.

From Rugby League Samoa, Lepa Faiuaso is one of the program coordinators who run the Team Up funded activity ‘League for Life’, using the power of rugby league to engage and develop communities to improve gender equality, social cohesion, health, and participation opportunities for people with disabilities.

“We go out to teach these children with our rugby clinics in an inclusive environment for people with disability. There is a new program that we’re going to introduce called ‘Voice against Violence’ which we will deliver out to communities, rugby clubs, and to the general public,” she said.

“Our League of Life program runs for 10 weeks with 4 weeks spent outdoors for practical lessons and 6 weeks of indoor sessions tackling social issues like bullying. This workshop has helped us identify the important areas we can improve on to better deliver our RLS programs in the local communities.”

These all contribute to either one or more focus areas such as gender, disability, leadership, governance, and knowledge sharing.

Team Up is one of several programs and activities driving the Australian government's implementation of the Sports Diplomacy 2030 strategy that supports sporting organisations, athletes, and the Pacific Community through Sport.