2013 saw many exciting events and programs happen with Hoops 4 Health Aboriginal Corporation. We continue to strive to attract core funding and even though we don’t have a full – time employee we have managed to secure an administrative base in conjunction with Starwin Management in the heart of Darwin.

There are a number of organizations who have given us support via memorandums of agreements including schools of the Department of Education, The Northern Territory Police and other health and youth services including Danila Dilba Youth Service.

In June we reviewed our Strategic Plan 2011 - 2015 and welcomed the input of our new members. Having the input of local people with national experience will enable our organization to flourish. Sammi Rioli was part of the National Women’s Indigenous Champions Team in 2010 and has joined our board. Local NAIDOC Youth of the Year in 2012, Mark Munnich provides much needed youth oriented views to our decision making and Delsey Rotumah –Tamiano also contributes valuably to our organization in this field.

We continue to strive to meet our compliance needs and with the move into the new office this should now become easier to manage. Delsey Ahwang, Robert Williams, Mishy Warrior, Rena Stanton and Natalie Althouse have provided great support in ensuring we are on top of our compliance issues.

Our “Local Community Campaigns” Live Longer Program funding through the Department of Health and Ageing was extended through until June 2014. This program was evaluated by KPMG and our activity for this program far exceeded our requirements as set out in our initial action plan. As the Chairperson, I would like to acknowledge the work and input of Nicole Butler and Timmy Duggan in ensuring this program was managed and conducted in a professional manner. The program will come to an end next year due to funding being cancelled.

The Hoops 4 Health Live Longer Program has reached out to an astonishing amount of participants since we received the funding in 2011. 4797 young people participated in the Live Longer Program over the past two years. The numbers were monitored through our participant and facilitator evaluation forms and our “Key to Good Health”.

To coincide with our “Live Longer” Program we conducted programs at Barunga with the Council for Aboriginal Alcohol Programs Services, Oenpelli with the Ganbalanya School and Maningrida for the Lurra Festival.

After five years of conducting the Alice Springs Challenge, funding for this program was rejected by the Department of Sport and Recreation. We have received overwhelming support by individuals and organizations in and around Alice Springs to continue to provide services to the community.

Our community involvement at different events promoting our service through music, basketball and our mascots continues to grow and we have had to knock back requests due to limited resources. We have set up stalls and interactive workshops for NAIDOC Week, The Kahlin Compound Family and Children’s Day, The Gems Academy Swimming Day, National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day and The Department of Children’s and Families Annual Foster Care Xmas Party, Bagot Community’s ABC Promotion, Karama Primary School’s Healthy Lifestyle Classes, Sanderson High School’s Reconciliation Day, St Johns High School Healthy Lifestyle Workshops and Charles Darwin University’s Open Day.

At 90% of our attendances at these events, either Hoopla or Hooper attended and were a big reason behind the interest in our programs. Our mascots have become our greatest asset at this stage of the organisations journey and continue to promote Hoops 4 Health in both Darwin and Alice Springs given the limited amount of resources available in an attempt to gain support.

In June and August we conducted programs with disengaged high school students in Alice Springs in conjunction with the NT Police.

A unique program commenced with the Northern Territory Government’s Department of Education’s Malak Re-Engagement Centre. The Malak Re-Engagement Centre incorporated our “Jiggy with Hoops Program” for the final school term. The “Jiggy with Hoops” was designed for young people to learn how to plan events, namely our Halloween Hoops 4 Health Challenge and learn how to facilitate our various programs on the ground and behind the scenes. Attached is an article from the Northern Territory News on the Halloween Hoops 4 Health Challenge. Seven young people from the Malak Re-engagement Centre are participating in the program.

This is an opportunity that may open new funding avenues for the organisation with having the dis-engaged youths of the community taking ownership in our program, it has the potential to assist in future submissions into crime prevention.

A number of national high profile celebrities and local sports people helped facilitate sessions over the past year for our organisation including: Daniel Motlop, Anthony Mundine, Rodney Overby, Darryl White, Ronnie Burns, Rohanee Cox, Gilbert Macadam, Deba George, Buster Perkins and Andre Moore.

The Australian Film and Television and Radio School’s Indigenous Programs Unit conducted a workshop with Hoops 4 Health and Danila Dilba to give young Indigenous students an opportunity to learn about film and television. To conclude the workshop we had one of our original founding members of Hoops 4 Health, MC Trendy Trev deliver a motivational speech to the young people.

To keep up with our continual evolvement, we renewed our logo to reflect a more corporate image. We will still maintain our original logo for use in our programs.

We have to find ways to be better and attract funding and think outside the box in making this happen. Our constant presence through our social media sites needs to be maintained and our programs continually promoted.

In finishing I would like to acknowledge several of our Board Members and Volunteers who have helped out over the past year and resigned from our committee. Frank Stokes, Pacita Bonson, Tamara Duggan, Ngaree Ahkit, Don Duggan and Letticha Clarke have been an integral part in the growth of our organisation over the past 10 years and we sincerely thank each and every one of them for their service to Hoops 4 Health Aboriginal Corporation.

Let’s build on the strong foundation that has been layed by theses members and volunteers, let’s create an organisation that they can continue to be proud of by securing core funding that enables longevity.

Glenn Warrior

Chairperson

Hoops 4 Health Aboriginal Corporation