Kimberley students learn road safety through sport

More than 550 students from communities across the Kimberley travelled to Broome for this year’s Kimberley 9s Carnival. The event celebrated a year of learning, effort and achievement through the Kimberley Connected program.

Kimberley Connected is run by the Purple Hands Foundation, the charitable arm of the Fremantle Dockers, and uses football to teach young people important life skills. These include healthy eating, staying active, connecting to culture, caring for Country and road safety.

This year, RAC worked with the Purple Hands Foundation to bring road safety lessons into Kimberley classrooms. Through RAC’s Road Safety Workshop, students from 34 schools learned how to stay safe on and around roads.

Students took part in fun, hands-on activities that taught them about the importance of wearing seatbelts, and bike helmets, checking that a bike is safe to ride and following road rules.

The students who attended the Kimberley 9s Carnival earned their place through good attendance, positive behaviour and active participation throughout the year.

At the carnival, students enjoyed football games, road safety activities, health and wellbeing sessions and a special Fun Fest. The event was a chance to celebrate what they had learned and achieved.

To help keep young people safe while riding, RAC also gave away 600 yellow bike helmets to schools across Kimberley communities.

RAC helped make the carnival possible by providing free accommodation at RAC Cable Beach Holiday Park for hundreds of students who travelled to Broome. For many participants, this meant having a safe and comfortable place to stay, helping transform the event experience and ensuring students could focus on enjoying the carnival.

This year’s program showed how sport can help young people learn new skills, build confidence and make safer choices for themselves and their communities.