Community sport helps increase school attendance in central Australia

The annual Santa Teresa football carnival is one of the most popular sporting events in central Australia, drawing teams and supporters from hundreds of kilometres away.

So, it makes sense for the Australian Government to team-up with the community, AFLNT and other organisations working in the community to use the carnival to promote the benefits of a good education.

The Ltyentye Apurte Community, also known as Santa Teresa, is a small community located 80 kilometres from Alice Springs with around 650 residents.

The population swells during the football carnival as teams and supporters from other remote communities arrive.

Sports carnivals throughout central Australia are an important part of culture and community life across the region. However, communities face poor school attendance as families stay in Santa Teresa beyond the weekend to cheer their team on to victory. As a result, Australian Government’s Remote School Attendance Strategy (RSAS) teams, who work with communities to increase school attendance, partnered with AFLNT and organisations like the Australian Drug Foundation to use football as a tool to get students back in the class room as soon as possible after the carnival. 

AFLNT and the community worked together to move the carnival to occur within term 3 school holidays to ensure the carnival wrapped up in time for kids to return to their communities in time to go to school on the first day of term.

Margie Fahy of the Australian Drug Foundation’s Good Sport Program is one of the team working to link sport with getting a good education.

“It’s amazing how much sport can be a really big key to keeping kids engaged in a positive way in their education,” Margie said.

“So we get sport and we get community and put those two things together and you have the opportunity to get some great social outcomes.”

The local community is also heavily involved in the programme and know about the importance of school attendance, as Chris Wallace, chairperson of the local Atyenhenge–Atherre Aboriginal Corporation, states.

“Education is pretty important, it’s for their future,” Chris said.

“It’s really hard for our young people to find work in communities. With a good education they might be able to get jobs in Alice Springs, where it’s bigger, or a better job instead of being on a work for the dole program. One day they might be able to run the corporation,” he said.

Chris recognises the difficulties he and the community face in achieving one hundred per cent school attendance but knows how important it is for the programme to succeed.

“I want them to know about their own identity, who they are, so they can be stronger,” Chris said.

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