By Sahar Foladi
Afri-Aus Care is diving deeper with the new launch of their junior Black Rhinos basketball team on February 18.
The event launch, ‘Black Rhinos UBUNTU’ is scheduled in the heart of Dandenong Harmony Square, in partnership with RMIT and City of Greater Dandenong, backed by Vic Health
The event will run from 1-8pm with 3×3 basketball tournament played on the day, African drums and performances from African artists to celebrate African pride and culture.
Black Rhinos is a crime prevention program for youth, which provides them opportunities to integrate and a positive social experience through basketball.
Afri-Aus Care CEO Selba Gondoza-Luka said: “We are living in a time where sport is a great platform to keep these young people on the right track. I’ve seen it with my own eyes it does help. Sports help young people.”
Black Rhinos was first launched in May 2017 with humble beginnings.
“Since then, the Black Rhinos hasn’t stopped basketball. We now have six teams in MMBL and one team in MBL,” Ms Gondoza-Luka said.
With another plunge, Afri-Aus Care will target kids from the age of five to 15 through their Black Rhinos junior team.
“We thought of doing primary interventions, working with younger African Australians. This is where the co-design project came about with RMIT, funded by Vic Health.
Before things go wrong, a lot of things happen at primary level,” Ms Gondoza-Luka said.
Selected senior Black Rhinos are trained to be mentors in primary schools, where the philosophy of UBUNTU will be taught to young students while teaching them real basketball skills and getting them to lead a positive, productive life.
“How do we do well? It’s because we have a philosophy we follow, UBUNTU- I am because we are equal,” Ms Gondoza-Luka said.
There are 25 to 30 youth in the junior rhinos team while Ms Gondoza-Luka is sure the numbers will only go up saying, “Basketball is popular – it will definitely go up.”
Associate professor in social work Ronnie Egan from RMIT has been working closely with Afri-Aus Care for five years now.
“Selba is doing an extraordinary work at Afri-Aus Care and she’s incredibly strategic.
Our partnership is built from respect. The trustworthiness we built up over time is indicative of how the work is unfolded it is truly community based. It’s built from ground up,” Ms Egan said.
The community-based co-design specifically tailors the program to the needs of the community.
“The idea was to develop service delivery models, which are underpinned by the UBUNTU philosophy, which ensures African Australian community members are engaged with services that traditionally they hadn’t been engaged with,” Ms Egan said.
Afri-Aus Care, in partnership with RMIT, has a lot to work with in the future together.
“I think it would be making junior rhinos sustainable but also taking that learning and knowledge that we’ve gathered from the process of this co-design to other communities and areas but it relies on someone like Selba to drive that.
We’ve got loads of plans in place,” Ms Egan said.
Prior to this, RMIT social work students undertook their placements with Afri-Aus Care in 2018 to better understand the African culture and the philosophy of UBUNTU.
The placements were carried out during Covid, which switched to online during lockdown restrictions.
“They had a fabulous experience, it was a journey into the African culture and also UBUNTU,” Ms Egan said.
Ryan Rooney, head coach of the senior Black Rhinos team, is also a high school teacher for over 15 years in PE and psychology.
“It’s something we’ve been looking forward to, especially because when we have mentors working in our schools. It’s a positive opportunity event for us and broader community. If we can get schools, community groups and sporting clubs to come together, it can be very powerful in positive change,” Mr Rooney said.
He was introduced to Afri-Aus Care after the team was launched in 2017 and started working as their coach in August of the same year.
“I always had passion for involvement of students in sporting programs. From my perspective, using sports in schools as positive engagement always went a long way.
I think we have a really promising future,” Mr Rooney said.
With an extensive experience in sports teaching, coaching and various settings, Mr Rooney said people could apply what they learnt in sports in their day-to-day life.
“Knowing sports has that capacity to have impact on people that they apply what they learn on the sports field in the organisation or with their team mates into the classrooms, jobs, home life, and everyday life, to me is something I’ve always had a strong belief in.”
There are three mentors and a senior mentor in schools to help students, with Mr Rooney overseeing the program.
“More coaches are the ideal situation because it means our seniors will give back to the program and being involved in that way. So we start to have real positive cycle of growth that happens on the peak.”
At present, the organisation offers basketball, netball and soccer, with an increasing appetite for rugby.
“Young people always ask for activities – if we can, why not?”, Ms Gondoza-Luka said.
However, with lack of funding for the senior teams, she said rugby was “just a dream”.
Like many other services, the Black Rhinos girls’ team was also forced to halt during Covid but is now up and running.
