AUSTRALIAN SPORTS PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM

Tennis Fiji joined the Pacific Sports Partnership (PSP) in 2016 in collaboration with Tennis Australia. Since joining the PSP in 2016, Tennis Fiji has introduced tennis to thousands of children and adults across Fiji. The PSP has provided opportunities for Tennis Fiji’s development officers to undergo training that has provided them with the skills and knowledge on how to teach beginner players from a young age the basic rules and techniques of playing tennis. In 2018, the PSP transitioned into the Australian Sports Partnership Program (ASPP) and continues its work to build healthy, inclusive communities through sport.

The ASPP and Tennis Fiji follow sports for development approaches. Sports have been internationally recognized as useful and effective vehicles to achieve development outcomes in areas such as health, nutrition, social cohesion, gender equality and disability inclusion. Sports programs are recognized as having unique characteristics that can contribute to community development as sport is a universally popular activity and plays a significant role in healthy childhood development and can contribute to the reduction of non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

Both the PSP and the ASPP have been developed in partnership between Tennis Australia and Tennis Fiji to create development programs and outcomes that are delivered in socially and culturally appropriate ways and focus on the most important health, social and gender issues that have been identified by Fijians in their communities. Community development programs run by Tennis Fiji have placed focus on:

• Healthy diet and nutrition,

• Healthy lifestyle including exercise and keeping active,

• Noncommunicable diseases (NDCs) and how to prevent their development,

• Gender equality including developing and maintaining respectful relationships both on and off the tennis court

The ASPP and Tennis Australia have provided opportunities that have supported Tennis Fiji’s development officers to gain better training and education on the delivery of outreach tennis programs. Training and workshops are ongoing and occur at regular intervals throughout the year. In 2019 training and workshops focussed on skilling staff in monitoring, evaluation, application and readiness techniques that can be applied in the context of tennis.

With the support of the ASPP and Tennis Australia, Tennis Fiji’s development officers conduct a variety of tennis development programs, across the country in schools, villages and communities. Over the past 12 months the Fiji tennis development team have conducted programs in a variety of locations, including Lautoka, Nadi, Suva, Nausori, Ba, Rakiraki, Vuda and the Yasawa Islands.

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In 2020, Tennis Fiji intends to increase the number of schools, communities and villages that it provides tennis development programs to. In 2020, Tennis Fiji aims to increase the number of people who play tennis and to provide better and regular competitive opportunities for Fijian tennis players to grow their skills and create a clearer pathway for juniors to transition to senior tennis players. Additionally, Tennis Fiji is growing partnerships with special schools in Fiji to make tennis playing opportunities more accessible for people with disabilities.

Alongside tennis activities, Tennis Fiji development staff have increased their capacity to deliver positive social messages and lessons. Tennis development programs are delivered in alongside lessons that target healthy living, nutrition, NCDs, gender equality and respectful relationships. Additionally, as of June 2020, tennis development programs have been adapted to include important messages in the fight against the spread of Coronavirus. This includes temperature testing of all participants, hand-washing, lessons on the importance of hand-washing to prevent the spread of infectious diseases and participating in sporting activities and exercises that can be done while also practicing social distancing measures.