The Sustainable Sports Program (SSP) is a grassroots initiative for local sports clubs to motivate youth and family engagement in sustainable habits that will benefit their club, community and contribute globally to creating a more sustainable, habitable planet for generations to come.
This Program is an initiative of two local mums, Linda Curtis and Liz Courtney (Northbridge FC) who had a dream to create a grassroots environmental movement for youth through sport. They received funding from the Federal Government to support a pilot program at Northbridge FC in 2020. On the 26th April 2021, the SSP officially launched with the NSFA successfully engaging over 18,500 players, from which 9 clubs nominated 46 Youth Ambassadors.
The key goal of the SSP is to provide youth with a voice to build sustainable initiatives at a local level through sport that will benefit their community, family and future.
The NSFA SSP will be launching its 2022 program in May and we would like to count on you to be part of it in 2022 to help us drive more sustainable actions in your club and work together to bring your collective ideas to action this year.
We are running the SSP from May to September with a range of activities, invited guest speakers and again our two major events – 1) Recycle and Replant for Goodness Sports Gear and 2) Bush and Beach Clean Ups to clean up, fix up and conserve our environment.
We encourage you to embrace this key initiative within your club and would like to hear from you to confirm your club’s participation in this year’s calendar of events by emailing Hilary Bingham (NSFA Vice President) (email bingham.hilary@gmail.com) and Linda Curtis (SSP Founder) (email lindacurtis1962@bigpond.com) before 11 June ’22.
We are looking to expand the SSP across all clubs in NSFA and invite each club to nominate up to 10 youth players who would like to step up and be a youth ambassador. Generally players aged from 8 – 19 are suitable.
Following last year’s conference call in August ’21 with the then NSW Minister for Energy and Environment (and now in addition NSW Treasurer), Matt Kean, we have worked to create a list of activities which we will build into this year’s program that you can all initiate at a club and team level. We have also identified activities that require funding and we plan to discuss these and seek action in July/August.