Canberra's First Nations basketball club, the Winnunga Warriors, has hosted hundreds of interstate players in celebration of NAIDOC Week. Players from diverse cultures and backgrounds participated in the annual tournament, aiming to promote reconciliation.
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00:00Walking hand in hand, basketball is a family affair for this team made up of sisters, cousins
00:10and friends with Dad Phil as the coach.
00:13The 500 kilometre journey from central NSW to the nation's capital has become an annual
00:19pilgrimage.
00:20It gets kids out of community, gets them connected with other mob down this way and they get
00:25to make new friends.
00:27It's an opportunity many from regional areas don't often get.
00:30I've moved away recently so coming back and connecting with all my mob and getting to
00:35see everybody, getting to reconnect with them, it's really important to me.
00:40Bringing together as a team, being one mob for the weekend.
00:46They're just one of more than 100 teams invited by the ACT's Winoonga Warriors Basketball
00:51Club competing in this year's NAIDOC tournament.
00:55The grassroots initiative began more than seven years ago, but organisers say the event
01:00is now more important than ever following last year's failed voice referendum.
01:05As non-Indigenous Australians, I feel like they need to embrace Aboriginal and Torres
01:09Strait Islander culture as part of their own, as part of being Australian.
01:13That's really important.
01:14Reconciliation is a great way to do that and basketball is the vehicle that we're using
01:19to do that.
01:20Warriors of every background and culture are encouraged to take the court to pass on knowledge.
01:25If we don't share it then it doesn't live on and it's really important for it to live
01:31on because there's not much around.
01:34Bringing mob together, the ultimate goal.