Koorie Youth Boxing Program

Hi all

A BIT ABOUT ME.

My name is Nikita Rotumah and I am a Gunditjmara Bunitj woman and a mother to 5 children. I was born and raised within the Aboriginal community in the Northern suburbs of Melbourne. I have spent my employment years working in different community organisations with Aboriginal families and youth. I currently work as an Aboriginal Youth Mental Health Worker.

I am reaching out to fundraise money and resources for a Koorie Youth Boxing program that I have recently started.

HOW AND WHY THE BOXING PROGRAM STARTED.

I started this program 4 weeks ago with the help of two great people in the boxing scene.

I decided to start this program because for many years I have observed a huge need for our youth to have more safe spaces to gather and engage in positive activity’s together. Spaces where they are culturally, emotionally and physically nurtured.

The recent Covid pandemic has intensified the issues Aboriginal youth are facing at the moment. Even before the pandemic our youth have been consistently over represented in the justice system, the mental health system and in the child protection system. Substance abuse and violence amongst our youth is also extremely concerning with more and more of our youth engaging in these risk taking behaviours.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

I started the boxing program with two amazing trainers who offered their time to get it up and running. We were not sure how much interest we would get but to our surprise the program has attracted more and more young people each week. Currently we have 18 young people engaged and participating twice a week for an hour each session and the numbers continue to grow.

The young people involved have shown enthusiasm and commitment to the program and have been returning each week and bringing their peers along with them. This has shown us that they are enjoying the program and getting something out of it.

Each young person that joins are given their own gloves and wraps so they have a sense of ownership and responsibility for their training gear. The youth not only learn the basic skills of boxing, we are also teaching them the importance of respecting themselves and others. They learn the many disciplines that come with boxing that they can apply to every day life, such as commitment, respect, resilience, bonding, connecting etc. These are all important life skills they need as they continue to develop. We are promoting healthy lifestyle choices by providing a healthy feed after each session and encouraging them to fuel their bodies with healthy food outside of the gym. The most amazing things we have seen in these young people during the past 4 weeks has been the growth in their confidence and the way they encourage each other during the sessions.

Lastly but most importantly we make sure they know that the skills they learn in the gym are not to be used to cause harm to anyone outside of the gym. The learning is that Boxing is a sport and these sessions are there for them to connect and work on their individual goals. This is a safe environment for the kids to release their emotions and make new friendships.

WHY WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT

At the moment I have been covering the costs to run the program because as I said before I was not sure how much interest we were going to get. Now that we have a large number of youth attending and the number keeps growing I now need to work out a way to make the program financially sustainable so we can continue.

WHAT THE BOXING PROGRAM NEEDS FUNDS, SUPPORT AND RESOURCES FOR

We would like to continue to provide the young people with their own training gear including gloves, wraps, runners (some participates don’t have adequate footwear). We would like then to have mouth guards, gym towels and training singlets. We also want to continue providing healthy food after the sessions and incentives such as movie tickets, gift vouchers for sportswear and footwear to support their participation in the program.

So far we have received a lot of positive feedback from the youth, their families and community. Parents have directly make contact to let me know they have noticed a significant positive changes in their children’s behaviour at home.

We would love to continue being able to support our youth with this boxing program so any support the community can offer will be truly appreciated whether it be donations, resources or connections to resources.

Thank your for supporting change, hope and opportunity for our youth.

Nikita Rotumah