14th to 19th of August:
Vitas Carosella, who has been writing passionately about sustainability and football, even a feature on The Ball, connected us to Vasse Soccer Club in South West Australia that strives to be sustainable, using Forest Green Rovers – the world’s most sustainable football club, as their role model.
Vasse Soccer Club is exploring how they can be more in line with nature when building their new club house, selecting club sports gear for their teams, catering to spectators during matches and being as inclusive and welcoming as possible to people of all genders (read the Forbes Sport Article on them here). Anna and Gareth from the club were excited to host The Ball, and connected us to schools and environmentalists in this beautiful, remote corner of Australia.
Striving to become more sustainable as a football club and as community, they pledged
to do all we can to look after our environment, for our players, and for our Vasse community.
We held FairPlay clinics at the Lady of Our Cape Primary School and ran a sustainability workshop at the Cape Naturaliste Secondary School. We even went to a local pub, which for the first time ever was packed full of people for a women’s sports match, to watch the Matildas lose to England in the semi final and be eliminated from the World Cup. During a community afternoon with Vasse Soccer Club, everyone old and young had a chance to play some FairPlay football, and a 7 year old girl, inspired by the Matildas and playing football for the first time, scored her first ever goal. That’s the next Sam Kerr right there! Just how many young girls in Australia are now dreaming of becoming a Matilda?
Another highlight was the visit to the Busselton Jetty Observatory. The observatory offers the possibility to watch marine life close up in their natural environment, without having to put fish and other animals into tanks. At the same time, the jetty team sensitizes their visitors about climate action, asking them for environmental pledges. They also have the goal to be carbon neutral by 2025.
I’m Lisa Shreeve, CEO of Busselton Jetty Incorporated. We aim to be carbon neutral by 2025. When we do underwater observatory tours, we ask each of our customers to sign an environmental pledge. That environmental pledge then goes out to them each month, to remind them to do well by the environment, to protect our clean oceans, and to not use plastic straws. These are some of the things we think we can do to educate the community, as well as entertain them, in our underwater observatory.
It was inspiring to meet Waljin (Mitchella Hutchins), an indigenous woman who reminded us to take better care of each other and the environment. Her quote sums up perfectly what we all should do: Work together, take care of each other and the environment. We all can do our part for a more sustainable and inclusive tomorrow:
My name is Mitchella Hutchins, my traditional name is Waljin, rainbow woman, I’m supposed to bring colour and light into places of darkness. My ancestors have taught me that we are universal creatures sharing one nest. If we take care of the nest, and take care of each other, life is good. If we respect the nest, if we respect each other, life is perfect. My pledge is to make sure we all learn how to take care of the nest and look after each other just a little bit better.
Let’s all take better care of the nest.
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