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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-08-01 Daily Xml
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Port Adelaide Football Club, Power Intercultural Program

The Hon. J.S. LEE (15:39): It is a great privilege today to rise to speak about the Port Adelaide Football Club's Power Intercultural Program. As we know, South Australia has been a proud multicultural state, and it is very encouraging that the Power Intercultural Program is designed to celebrate vibrancy of cultural diversity and promote pride and social inclusion by recognising the positive contribution of our culturally and linguistically diverse communities through sports.

The Power Intercultural Program is an innovative educational program that is delivered to secondary school students in years 10 and 11 from schools across South Australia with large multicultural populations. I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and congratulate Port Adelaide CEO, Keith Thomas; the general manager of Power Community Ltd, Ross Wait; and program manager, Alipate Carlile, for their vision in introducing the meaningful intercultural program last year.

The program was launched in 2017 with the belief that if anything can transcend race, intolerance, discrimination or disadvantage it is sport—in this case, Aussie Rules footy. In 2018, 225 secondary students from over 80 different cultures took part in the program, and I was pleased to learn that for the first time this year the Power Intercultural Program has SACE accreditation as part of the integrated learning subject.

Ambassadors are valuable assets to the club, and I would like to acknowledge the excellent work of the current AFL multicultural ambassadors of different heritages: Jimmy Toumpas, Greek/Cypriot heritage; Emmanuel Irra, Ugandan heritage; and Chen Shaoliang, Chinese heritage. These ambassadors, together with former Port Adelaide Football Club players, dedicated time to conducting and delivering sessions of the intercultural program. Those workshops encouraged students to explore their own culture, Aboriginal culture and other cultures within the school and local community.

The program allows students to develop an understanding of cultural differences and learn the skills of the Australian Rules football game. It promotes topics that foster intercultural acceptance and respect, and helps students build resilience. It is wonderful for students to have the unique opportunity of being mentored and motivated by their sporting hero players and professional staff.

I attended the inaugural launch of the intercultural carnival last year and it was wonderful to be invited back by Port Power this year. It was an honour to represent the Premier, the Hon. Steven Marshall, and the Minister for Education, the Hon. John Gardner, in the other place at the Power Intercultural Program carnival opening ceremony on 21 June 2018. I was joined by the member for Colton, Matt Cowdrey OAM, at the ceremony to convey the government's best wishes to participating schools, and witnessed students and teachers wholeheartedly embracing this exciting multicultural program.

Football guernsey design is part of the intercultural program activities. The development stage requires students to research different cultures, consult the school community and come up with a design with symbols, images and colours that tell the story behind each guernsey and its relationship to cultural significance and the community it represents.

My heartfelt congratulations to all the students from the eight participating schools: Adelaide Secondary School of English, the Australian Islamic College, Garden College, Glenunga International High School, Pinnacle College, Thebarton Senior College, Thomas More College and Underdale High School. I commend all the students on their amazing efforts in the Power Intercultural Program carnival.

Special thanks to Port Power for reaching out to our young South Australians by delivering intercultural programs, Aboriginal programs and youth programs to create life-changing experiences for young people to gain further education and employment opportunities. I also thank the Power Community sponsoring partners for their ongoing commitment to promoting and delivering a wide range of programs that help to address key issues confronting young people across diverse communities.

Once again, well done to the leadership team at Port Power for their vision and dedication in using football to deliver meaningful educational and sports programs for young South Australians. These programs have the great potential to build confidence and resilience, open up new pathways and opportunities for young people to learn and grow, and to make a positive contribution to our multicultural society in South Australia.

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