Red Dust Heelers call on youth to excel in sport through week long disability awareness festival

A week-long festival of activities to raise awareness of people living with disabilities came to an exciting end on Friday with a three-a-side basketball competition organised by some of Australia’s best Paralympic athletes. The intense competition welcomed participants of all ages and experience levels to try their skills against Red Dust Heelers professional wheelchair basketball players including Ryan Morich, Deanni Cowen-Davey, Kathleen O’Kelly-Kennedy, and Brad Ness. Morich was the first Indigenous athlete with a disability to receive a sports scholarship in the US, and was 2016 national NAIDOC sportsperson of the year. Cowen-Davey is a Bardi woman from One Arm Point who has represented Australia in swimming. Each team played six games in a round robin format, with a team of Broome Senior High School youngsters showing off their basketball experience, followed by an exciting All Stars match between the Red Dust Heelers professionals. The Red Dust Heelers have an all-Indigenous line-up, which put them in the history books as the only team at a national league level to have done so in Australia. Morich said the Red Dust Heelers would look to return in future. “We are already talking about the next time we come up,” he said. Kimberley Supports community capacity co-ordinator Jacki Warrick said the Red Dust Heelers also held a series of workshops, events and talks across the week to raise awareness about disabilities in the community. “Through sharing their stories and their skills, they aim to encourage young people living with disabilities to excel in sport,” she said. A collaboration between Kimberley Supports and the Shire of Broome, All in Hoops and Heal Broome, brought other fun activities to town including blind footy and wheelchair floorball.