Cultural, racial and linguistically diverse communities
Participating in sport is valuable and meaningful for everyone and can have broader impact for Australia’s culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities.
Sport can be a place where negative social stereotypes and barriers can be broken down and replaced with positive ones, leading to broader social harmony.
Sport can also help newly arrived migrants navigate the challenges of life in a new country, such as learning the language and building social relationships.
Strategies
- Get to know your local communities. Consult local community leaders or supporting existing participants to act as ‘diversity champions’ and develop targeted and appropriate practices.
- Engage with local CALD community groups for support and direction and co-design policies and processes that focus on creating safe and welcoming spaces and experiences.
- Ask parents and family members to contribute as coaches and volunteers which will help influence participation, build trust, meet expectations and create culturally appropriate environments.
- Ensure you have tried and tested policies and processes to prevent and respond to racism and discrimination. Promote these through coaches, committee and volunteer to the whole club at the start of the season, mid-season and then again when new people join the club.
- Ensure policies outline consequences for discrimination, ensuring that casual racist slurs or insults (for example in-jokes) are included as forms of discrimination and will have the same consequences.
- Have a formal complaints process in place.
- Ensure you have a committee member or a club nominated officer with professional or lived experience in place for confidential discussions.
- Regardless of whether racism or discrimination has occurred in your club ensure you regularly facilitate conversations that allow for reflection and learning about dealing with incidents if and when they occur.
- Make a calendar of significant cultural and religious events or periods and consider these dates when planning key club activities and events.
- Ensure club events either don’t clash with significant cultural or religious dates or where possible are incorporated and celebrated at the club event in a meaningful way.
- Play an influencing role with your association to consider significant cultural and religious dates when planning league wide events such as presentation nights and season launches. Consider holding themed events that celebrate the cultural diversity of your club and community.
- Ensure all club events consider the cultural needs of those attending eg catering options and dress code.
- Consider hosting alcohol free events throughout the year.
- Participate in cultural awareness workshops to learn about the needs of CALD communities.
- Be flexible with uniform requirements to accommodate the cultural and religious needs of certain communities
- Have visible and inclusive signage such as anti-racism posters and club information in multiple languages.
- In consultation with community members, provide a safe designated space where people can pray.
- Consider creative ways to assist any family at your club that has transport or financial challenges that are preventing participation.
- Provide flexible opportunities to involve CALD communities such as ‘come and try’ or ‘family’ days. This helps them to better understand club structures and become more familiar with sports clubs and roles (e.g. volunteering).
- Remember the sporting system in Australia is very different to a lot of other parts of the world. Take the time to explain your structures and services, particularly to anyone new to Australia.
- Ensure your social events, newsletters, and social media posts are culturally sensitive and appropriate. Use language that is easy to understand and visuals that represent the cultural diversity of the community.
Tip: Diversity within your leadership structures, including coaching, management and committee roles, will be a big step in your commitment to diversity and inclusion. Support existing participants to transition into leadership or role model positions and support them to mentor others.
Resources
Case studies
- Sunshine Heights Cricket Club
- St Marys Netball Club
- Collingwood Basketball Club
- Keon Park Tennis Club
- Geelong Baycats Baseball Charter
- The All Stars – Centre for Multicultural Youth
- Inclusion in Action – Mosaic Metros Futsal Club – YouTube
Stories on refugees in sport
- “Sport means everything to me.” – UNHCR
- Soccer providing vital link between refugees and their new regional community - ABC News
- National Refugee Week: Thomas Deng's journey from South Sudan refugee to Socceroos – Football Australia
Fact sheets and toolkits
- Engaging volunteers from multicultural communities
- AFL Multicultural Toolkit
- Football Australia CALD Factsheet
- Game Plan Resource Kit – Centre for Multicultural Youth
Other resources
- Engaging volunteers from multicultural communities
- Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Audiences – Marketing segmentation for sport participation – Clearinghouse for Sport
- Managing Volunteers from a CALD Background – Volunteering Resource Hub
- Building cultural inclusion in active recreation and sport – Sport New Zealand – Ihi Aotearoa
- Inclusive Organisations Good Practice Guide – Centre for Multicultural Youth
- Leadership – Multicultural NSW
- Culturally Competent Youth Work – Centre for Multicultural Youth
- Managing Volunteers from a CALD Background – Volunteering Resource Hub
- Inclusion of people from different cultural backgrounds into sport – Play by the Rules
- The religious playing field – Play by the Rules
- Creating Inclusive Multi-Faith Workplaces Infographic
- Working with interpreters – Centre for Multicultural Youth
- Culturally and linguistically diverse – eSafety Commissioner
- Cultural and Religious dates – 2022
- Muslim Women in Sport – Women In Sport
- Multicultural Female Uniform Guidelines
- Pathways to culturally diverse volunteering towards COVID-19 recovery - Volunteering Victoria
- It's not all about gender or ethnicity: a blind spot in diversity programs is holding equality back - The Conversation
- How you communicate affects if you’re viewed as inclusive - Sport Information Resource Centre Blog
- Enabling Muslim Girls to play sport - Change Our Game
Best practice examples
Breaking barriers through sport: The experience of people from refugee backgrounds
Coming to Australia was a “dream come true” for David Jongkuch Ayuen, a football player from South Sudan who grew up in a refugee camp in Kakuma, Kenya.
However, the reality of migrating and settling into the community wasn’t so simple. Jongkuch Ayuen endured five years of constant uncertainty and difficult living conditions before being able to move to Australia with his family.
“I was really excited to come to Australia because in a refugee camp life is hard. You’re getting food rations, the temperatures are high, and the quality of education needs a lot of improvement,” he said.
Upon arriving in Queensland, excitement was overcome with culture shock as he faced the challenges of starting a new life.
"The biggest challenges were connecting with the community, not knowing anyone, being unable to speak English, and being clueless about where to go," he added.
Like many others from cultural, racial, and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities, Jongkuch Ayuen found connection to his new home through sport.
The Australian Sports Commission (ASC) is sharing his story and many others as part of its vision that ‘sport has a place for everyone’ and can support people from refugee backgrounds form social connections and adapt to life in a new country.
To assist sports achieve this, the ASC is developing a suite of resources and strategies, as well as CALD storytelling series featuring people like Jongkuch Ayuen and 17 year old Zahra Ahmadi, who shared her difficult journey from Afghanistan to Australia.
"It was tough getting to Australia because we had to go to Pakistan first,” Ahmadi explained.
“Without Afghani passports, entering Pakistan wasn’t easy. During our time there, all of my family had to work and we couldn't go to school. We made carpets at home for six years.”
Since arriving in Australia and with the support from organisations such as Pushing Barriers, she has since found a community in a range of sports, including netball, boxing, badminton, and AFL.
"I never thought a Muslim girl like me could be good at sports and fit in with the other girls while wearing a hijab. Pushing Barriers played a big role in that,” Ahmadi said.
The not-for-profit organisation aims to remove barriers that prevent people from refugee backgrounds from participating in sport by helping them understand how the system works and providing support with club fees, transportation, equipment, and communication.
Their work supports the sport sector to be more inclusive by helping sporting clubs understand the unique environments and experiences many refugee community members come from and how to engage them into their clubs so they feel welcomed and safe.
Tracey Tucker, CEO of Pushing Barriers, said: “We’ve seen youths from refugee backgrounds be embraced by their team and coaches, grow in confidence, improve their English, build friendships, and just feel part of a community.”
Jongkuch Ayuen, who now works as a sport volunteer, has found this sense of community invaluable while settling into a new country.
“We meet a lot of people from diverse backgrounds, so when you're having a hard time, there’s often somebody who's experienced a similar journey that you can talk to, and they can help you cope and adapt to Australia,” he said.
For more resources and strategies on how to understand, recognise and celebrate inclusion and diversity within sports and clubs visit the CALD communities webpage.
National Rugby League (NRL) – In League In Harmony
The NRL’s In League In Harmony program promotes social cohesion by focusing on respect and inclusiveness, addressing issues like social disengagement, racism, gender inequality and bullying.
The program empowers young people to be the agents of change for a more cohesive society. Participants are supported to acknowledge, appreciate and celebrate diversity, through a non-formal educational approach using rugby league as a vehicle to educate and build personal development skills.
Centre for Multicultural Youth (CMY) – Welcome Football
The Centre for Multicultural Youth offers a program called Welcome Football, which uses soccer to support newly arrived young people and their families, to build social connections and develop life skills like leadership.
Programs and events that are delivered include a youth leadership component that supports champions to undertake training, coaching and refereeing.