CEO Message: Introducing our new initiative CMSport
On a sunny Tuesday afternoon, CMY celebrated an exciting new chapter with the launch of CMSport, a new initiative aimed at driving social change through sport. While it would’ve been nice to gather in person at a local sports venue to mark this significant moment, we were joined by over 180 people at an online event, and had the honour of being officially launched by the Hon. Ros Spence, Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Community Sport and Youth, who also provided seed funding for the unit.
CMY recognises that sport is a valuable tool to engage multicultural youth and families into other interventions with social and community outcomes. At the same time, the sports sector is increasingly recognising the need to strategically engage and be more inclusive of Australia’s growing culturally and linguistically diverse communities.
We believe CMSport is the natural progression and vehicle to continue the work CMY started over 20 years ago. We understand the need for sporting organisations around Australia to strategically engage – to turn inclusion into a competitive advantage and connect meaningfully to our growing multicultural communities. CMSport hopes to bridge the gap between the sporting world and our multicultural communities, through the provision of diversity and inclusion assessment and training, coaching and mentoring, and consulting support to the Australian sports sector.
CMY has delivered sport and active recreation programs for over 25 years and we have worked closely with State and National Sporting Associations to strengthen their capability to engage effectively with multicultural communities. Providing deep knowledge, breadth of expertise, and live-experienced of multicultural communities and their needs, CMSport brings together our extensive experience and resources as a specialist platform to support the sports sector in deepening their awareness, understanding and capability to support creative practice for cultural diversity and inclusion in sport organisations.
At the launch, we also announced CMSport’s partnership with the Koori Heritage Trust to develop a new approach to tackling racism in sport. This partnership will help strengthen connections between multicultural young people and communities and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to walk together and work together to see an Australian sporting culture that is equitable, inclusive and free from racism. We are excited to begin this work with key organisations — including Netball Victoria, Basketball Victoria, Football Victoria, AFL, NRL Victoria and the National Rugby League. We are looking forward to this new and unique partnership between the sports sector and multicultural and indigenous experts, working collaboratively to support young people and their communities.
I would like to formally introduce our staff in the new CMSport team, Teuila Reid (CMSport Manager) and Yonas Gebremichael (Project Officer). They will reach out to our many partners and colleagues when they start in mid-October.
In the meantime, feel free to contact us via info@cmsport.com.au or visit the website www.cmsport.com.au.