Fast Facts

Project Name: Engaging with Youth

Organisation: Melton Rugby Union Football Club

Grant fund: Youth Engagement Grants

Grant amount: $50,000

Young participants enjoy connecting to culture through food and cooking

The Project

Melton Rugby Union Football Club’s Engaging with Youth is a unique project where a sports club has taken on an expanded role to deliver additional activities to respond to the needs of Pasifika young people.

Melton Rugby Union Football Club is funded under the Youth Engagement Grants that provide small multicultural and aboriginal organisations with grants of up to $50,000 each over two years to deliver activities to children and young people to support them to connect to their community, family, friends, and culture.   

The project seeks to engage 200 Pasifika children and young people aged 8 to 24 in the City of Melton, and to connect them to their culture, peers, family, and community through:

  • weekly rugby practice sessions and games
  • health and wellbeing information sessions, including self-care and mental health awareness
  • homework club
  • cultural activities, including cooking, singing and dancing.

Priscilla Maiava, Secretary of the club shares ‘because of the project, the young people have become more confident, positive, and open about their feelings. They are showing leadership skills and are becoming positive role model for younger siblings. The young people are attending school regularly and have displayed awareness of impact when involved in criminal activity’.