SOUTH East South Australia Aboriginal Secondary Training Academy (SAASTA) students from Mount Gambier, Grant and Naracoorte High Schools recently participated in the Aboriginal Power Cup AFL Carnival in Adelaide.
The Power Cup Carnival celebrates aboriginal culture through a two-day nine-a-side football carnival.
Also involved was a careers expo, war cry recording and ending the experience was a cultural dance performed on Adelaide Oval before a Port Adelaide AFL game.
The carnival represents the culmination of two terms worth of school work related to developing a deeper understanding of aboriginal culture, history and perspectives.
The guernsey worn by the team at the carnival was the result of one of the course tasks, where all students had to create a design which incorporated social and cultural aspects important to them.
Denzel Carter created the winning design, which showcases the blue water of the Coorong and Ngarrindjeri Country, linking with the green land of Mount Gambier’s Boandik Country.
Aspects of all the designs were incorporated into the banner which was paraded around Adelaide Oval before the game.
For the cultural dance the group worked with Karl Telfer, who manages the Yellaka Dance Company.
The dance performed recognises and celebrates Aboriginal women, with the young women in the centre representing the sun and life, with the young men coming from two sides as warriors protecting them.
The dance was performed in front of 40,000 people at Adelaide Oval.
During the nine-a-side football carnival, South East students were paired with Woodville High School to make up numbers and although they had not played together, both the boy’s and girl’s sides came together quickly as a team.
South East players showed excellent sportsmanship and Woodville staff were impressed with how polite, caring and community spirited the students were.
Throughout the semester leading up to the Power Cup, academies gain a maximum of 120 points based on attendance, task completion and quality, along with the carnival and careers expo.
The winners of the carnival this year were the girls from STEM Academy and boys from Riverland.
However, the South East girls finished a credible second overall in only their second year in the event.
Their hard work throughout the semester paid off and the girls were rewarded with the opportunity to play the curtain raiser on Adelaide Oval.
“Playing on Adelaide Oval was surreal and it made me feel like it was an amazing reward for all of our hard work,” student Kelsey Grigg said.
“Coming second overall was a real surprise, considering this is only our second year in SAASTA,” student Ieshia Goldsmith added.
“It is a real motivator to do even better next year.”
