Swan Districts to launch Walking Sport programs

The Swan Districts Football Club continues to be a ground breaking organisation in becoming much more than a football club, but one that helps as many in the community as possible and that's why a new Walking Sport program getting underway is such an exciting initiative.

To be a viable part of their communities moving forward, a WAFL club has to have a more significant overall social impact than just worrying about what happens on their football fields on a weekend, and that's something the Swan Districts Football Club is fully embracing.

Not only are Swans embracing it, but they are setting the example for what is possible and being a trendsetter and ground breaking organisation in so many ways in terms of overall social impact in the local community.

The latest initiative the Swan Districts Football Club would like to announce is the Walking Sport program which is designed for the more mature members of the community who could use the benefits of being a little more active.

Teaming up with the City of Swan and Swan Active, the Swan Districts Football Club will be providing the opportunity for older Aboriginal participants to take part in a Walking Football weekly activity during the winter months, and Walking Basketball over the summer months.

The idea is for them to become active but to do it in a much more attractive way than needing to self-motivate and exercise on their own.

By incorporating either a football or basketball into the exercise, and replicating some ball exercises and football or basketball drills, it will keep those taking part active but also to enjoy interacting with other people and getting to enjoy the feeling of being part of a team.

"We are partnering with the City of Swan to provide a Walking Sport program for older Indigenous people in the City of Swan," said Swan Districts' Head of Social Impact, Matt Hewitson.

"Our plan is to run Walking Football in winter and Walking Basketball in summer which we are really excited about. We will be running the program once a week on a Wednesday afternoon at Swan Active in Beechboro."

While the physical benefits for those taking part in the Walking Football and Walking Basketball activities will be obvious, the chance to impact the lives of those involved in a whole range of areas is what it makes it truly exciting.

"We are trying to have an impact on physical health of a greater range of people in our district but also the mental health of everybody, and the social benefits that comes from exercising together, and having a yarn together," Hewitson said.

"We have been able to inject some nutritional information and health education into the programs as well just to help as much as we can. It's just part of our broader strategy to impact across our five key dimensions of social impact – which are physical health; mental health; individual development; social and community development; and access/opportunity."

It's all part of a big picture approach from the Swan Districts Football Club to become a central focus in the City of Swan as somewhere that can help improves the lives of people of any age, and from any walk of life.

It's something that Swans are leading the way in throughout the WA sporting community and it's something that is only going to continue to grow.

"For us, it's part of our club becoming more involved in helping a larger portion of the community. Historically our focus from a social impact point of view has been focused on the youth and younger adults, which is obvious because that's the age of who players for our football teams," Hewitson said.

"Obviously in recent years our club has expanded into providing avenues to play for people with disability and over the last 12 months, we've moved more broadly into community health through our Aussie-FIT program and also our Ironbark program – which is a falls prevention program for older Aboriginal people in both Bassendean and Mirrabooka."