Who Can Take Part in the Academy Program?

The Clontarf Foundation currently has 18 Academies within Western Australia & the Northern Territory.

Any boy who is enrolled at Clontarf Aboriginal College (Waterford), Yule Brook College (Maddington), Eastern Goldfields Senior High School (Kalgoorlie-Boulder), Nulsen Primary School (Esperance), Geraldton Senior High School and John Willcock College(Midwest), Broome Senior High School and St Mary's College (West Kimberley), Kununurra District High School and Halls Creek District High School (East Kimberley), North Albany Senior High (Great Southern), Newton Moore Senior High School (South West), Alice Springs Senior High School, Centralian College, Anzac Hill High School and Yirara College (Alice Springs), Palmerston High School and Sanderson Middle School (Darwin) or Katherine District High School (Katherine) can apply to be part of the program.

To maintain their position in the Football Academy participants need to show commitment towards training and the education program.

 

What do we do?

The Clontarf Foundation is a "not for profit" organisation incorporated in Western Australia. Our aim is to help improve the health, employment, education and life skills of Australia’s teenaged male Indigenous population.

The Foundation believes that failure to experience achievement when young, coupled with a position of under privilege can lead to alienation, anger and thence to more serious consequences. As a prelude to tackling these and other issues, participants are first provided with an opportunity to succeed and hence to raise their self esteem. The vehicle for achieving this outcome is Australian Rules Football.

The Foundation’s programmes are delivered through a network of Academies, each of which operates in partnership (but independent of) a school or college. Football is used to attract teenaged Aboriginal men to school and then keep them there. In order to remain in the programme, participants must continue to work at school and embrace the objectives of the Foundation. As well as delivering a football programme, Academy staff (many of whom are ex- AFL players), act as mentors and trainers who address many of the negatives impacting on participants’ lives.

The football profile of staff, and having successful teams are important since they attract young men to the programme, differentiate it in the eyes of participants and raise their self esteem.