Who we are
About the foundation
The Oceania Australia Foundation is a not-for-profit, non-political organisation working to advance health standards in disadvantaged communities across the Oceania region, with a particular focus on the Pacific Islands.
Its partnership with the Oceania National Olympic Committees (ONOC) rests on its broad offering of educational programmes promoting health and well-being via participation in physical activity, specifically targeting obesity, diabetes and heart disease and its educational courses in sports coaching. It also provides sports and academic scholarships for overseas study to promising young leaders, an important avenue for personal and professional development for young athletes from the Pacific Small Island Developing States (Pacific SIDS).
It educates communities in basic physiology and the range of health benefits that result from physical activity, provides a combination of sports and academic scholarships to overseas universities, and promotes leadership and social engagement in communities.
One of the most important approaches it uses is through its encouragement of gender diversity at leadership level in communities and its general enhancement of community spirit and cohesion in disadvantaged communities through people’s participation in sporting activities.
The Oceania Australia Foundation is based in Melbourne, Australia
What we do
Achieving the following
- advancing health standards in disadvantaged communities across the Oceania region, with a particular focus on the Pacific Islands;
- educating disadvantaged communities in basic physiology and the range of health benefits that result from physical activity;
- educating young people from such disadvantaged communities, including by way of scholarships to overseas universities;
- the promotion of leadership and social engagement in the community;
- encouraging gender diversity at a leadership level in the community; and
- the general enhancement of community spirit and cohesion in disadvantaged communities.
Securing our objectives
- offering educational programmes promoting health and well-being via participation in physical activity, specifically targeting obesity, diabetes and heart disease;
- offering educational courses in sports coaching;
- providing scholarships for overseas study to promising young leaders;
- helping young people to develop leadership skills and community spirit including by providing them with opportunities to participate in sporting activities; and
- seeking funding or donations through fundraising events and engagement with State and Commonwealth governments in Australia.
Message from our Chairman
In all of my various activities as a sports administrator, the Oceania Australia Foundation takes a very special place. I suspect deep down it is a reflection of my own experience and the start I was given in my life as a result of a sports academic scholarship in the United States as an aspiring young athlete.
That experience, which was quite unusual in those days, combined with the level of coaching and academic study in the United States varsity system, led to me becoming an Olympic athlete and later to fill senior roles in corporate life; all of this of course with my family backing.
So many years later to have the privilege to chair the Oceania Australia Foundation gives me the satisfaction of seeing deserving bright young students with athletic ability granted the same opportunity.
Our young scholarship winners are already demonstrating that they can rise to the occasion and are achieving results which have led them to further educational and athletic opportunities in the United States or see them returning to their countries to pass on the benefits of their overseas experience.
The Foundation looks forward to the strengthening of this program as it continues to provide opportunities for young people in the Oceania region.
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