Community inclusion delivered in spades at the RMF Community Cup Day.

The second annual Reagan Milstein Foundation (RMF) community football day, in which the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre was an event partner, took place on Sunday 18 Oct 2015 at the Knox Regional Football Centre.

The day could not have been any better as the sun shined down on the nearly 400 participants. The aim of the cup was to promote respect, cooperation, understanding and inclusion through the power of soccer. The participants ranged from indigenous to Asian and Middle Eastern groups, players from all abilities, Victoria Police and just general groups that love to play football and were split into social and competitive divisions.

Although, by the way that everyone intermingled and helped each other on the day you would have thought that everyone was in a social group. The in-house DJ got everyone upbeat throughout the day and kept the pace light and bright as could be seen by the amount of people that broke out into dance on the side lines.

But without a doubt the main attractions were right there in the 9 cages that occupy the Knox centre. It was beautiful to see how the all abilities teams played against other teams. All inhibitions and preconceptions were dispersed with and replaced with smiles and laughter. We could not have asked for anything better or more uplifting.

RMF would like to thank all involved that made it such an incredible day especially:

The ASRC (event partner), Banking on Football (event sponsor), Melbourne Victory W League team, Victorian Asian Football Federation, OiD graphic designers, Football Music Culture, 5 Star Trophies, Victoria Police, Emilio from Instinctive Chiropractic, Prahran Junior Football Club, Australia’s Wastesavers, Liverpool Football Club Foundation, Football Federation Victoria, all the referees on the day, all the volunteers on the day and the RMF ASRC organising committee.

While this was going on in Melbourne the same concept of a RMF community football day was also taking place in Hervey Bay, Qld and the following week in Mt Gambier, South Australia.

RMF and the ASRC are looking at ways in which we can expand our message of inclusion throughout the country, so feel free to talk to us about it if you have any ideas. You can contact Kevin from the RMF Foundation at kevin@rmf.world  or on 0416 250 754. At this stage 16 or 23 Oct are dates we are aiming at for next year. Put that in your diary now – we hope to see you all back in 2016!