Celebrating 15 Years of Fair Game
During 15 years of providing health promotion programs and pre-loved sports equipment to some of the most remote and underserviced communities in Western Australia, we have learnt many lessons. Our commitment to continuous improvement has meant we’ve applied them to increase our efficacy and achieve significant sustainable impact in our mission to empower and support communities to make healthy lifestyle choices .
We feel this is a good moment to reflect on exactly what makes our programs so successful and enduringly popular with the communities we serve. We have distilled this into 8 key themes:
· Culturally Informed Governance
· An Integrated Delivery Model
· Effective Outcomes Measurement
· Nurturing long-term alliances for organisational stability
· The benefits of a fly-in fly-out model
· Building positive volunteer experiences
· Insights into successfully engaging at-risk youth – Fair Game’s regional Game On! Hubs
· Successfully mobilising Community Engagement – the fuel for our Equip for Sport program
Over the next months we will be looking at each one in detail, sharing our insights into the secrets to our success.
First, a look back at where it all began.
Working as a junior emergency doctor in the Hedland Health Campus in the Pilbara, John van Bockxmeer’s was treating a young adult suffering from multiple chronic conditions when he looked out of the window and saw two children in the car park kicking around a can in place of a soccer ball. This set him thinking - “I wanted to find a holistic and empowering way to curb the tide of lifestyle related illness”
What started with a road trip donating pre-loved sports equipment to remote communities, soon developed into something bigger. John took the opportunity to talk to the communities they visited to learn about their needs. He quickly understood there would be value in offering health promotion and fitness programs to these communities which receive few external services.
Promoting his core philosophy that “everyone can make a difference – together we can make change”, John had soon recruited a band of committed volunteers who shared his vision of an equitable, healthier and sustainable Australia. Developing health promotion programming with the cooperation of the Kimberley Aboriginal Medical Services Council and other medical professionals working in the relevant fields, the Healthy Communities program was soon in operation.
Game On! fun fitness games were developed alongside to quickly create strong engagement with the children in each community.
Maintaining strong relationships with communities to ensure we are responding to their specific needs is the foundation on which we build. We continue to use our successful model of inclusive rapport building games, followed by interactive health education, but our commitment to continual improvement means gathering feedback from communities and our teams, and regular reviews of programming and consultation with others working in relevant fields to adjust programming and achieve the highest level of impact.
After 15 years of program delivery, Fair Game’s teams have built strong relationships with over 30 remote communities across the Kimberley, Pilbara and MidWest. In fact 18 of those communities have received 10 or more years of Fair Game program delivery. Our teams spend over 270 days in remote communities each year supporting and empowering communities to lead healthy lifestyles.
A special thank you to @HorizonPower who have supported us since the beginning!