Second week back in community!
In the West Kimberley, our team are running weekly overnight visits through Djarindjin, One Arm Point and Beagle Bay as well as down to Bidyadanga every fortnight. We have loved getting involved with the school and supporting the PE class delivery. Working closely with the schools means more time with the kids in community to run different sporting activites and encourage involvement in our leadership activites. To mix it up, the Garnduwa boys have been running afternoon cricket in One Arm Point on top of the Aussie Hoops being run in other communities along the peninsula.
In the Pilbara, Kachina and Roedol have started the term with a community engagement program at the Yandeyarra pool. Working together with the community and Royal Life Saving WA, Garnduwa decided to run a swimming program to coincide with the swimming lessons run by the school. Working collaboratively and listening to community concerns are at the forefront of the way we work as a grassroots Kimberley organisation and it is fantastic to see this in practise. In Hedland, junior basketball has started, with the competition on Tuesday evenings and the SLAM Program beginning on Friday nights.
In the East, our Halls Creek team are having heaps of fun at the community netball night that has kicked off in town, with our staff even jumping in for some of the games. The road to the desert communities we service is still shut due to the rain, so the team have been working extra hard in town including welcoming a new team member, Darrilyn Gordon.
Over in Wyndham and Warmun our weekly afterschool basketball sessions have kicked off! Aussie Hoops for the little kids and 3x3 Streetball for the older ones. Our East Kimberley Manager Riley Dolman was so pleased to see kids in Warmun taking initiative by refereeing each others games and responding with respect to one another! 2020 was a big year in Warmun, with huge numbers at all our Garnduwa activities – the skills and teamwork the kids learnt last year is really showing already in our 2021 programs as some of the kids are much more capable of playing independently in our structured programs. We would like to thank volunteer and local Frog Hollow man Kim Griffiths for bringing in kids from Frog Hollow each week!
In the Central Kimberley our Active Communities Coordinator Sam has been extra busy making sure to have visited all four communities in the region to plan a busy term one. Derby man Brent from Yiramalay school has been volunteering on Tuesday nights to run a drop in basketball session in Fitzroy Crossing. Garnduwa mob have been picking up and dropping off kids from Bayulu to participate. It has been a slow start but last week we had a busload of kids!
Stay tuned for more updates from across the Kimberley.