The Australian Indigenous Alpine Sport Foundation (AIASF) is a not-for-profit Foundation that conducted its inaugural program in 2015, aiming to promote participation in Alpine Sports by disadvantaged Aboriginal youth to achieve better outcomes, improve their quality of life and empower Aboriginal youth across Australian Aboriginal communities using Alpine Sport as a fundamental tool for excellence.
We have been privileged to conduct yearly Winter Program snow camps and an inaugural Summer Program in 2019, so far taking around 160 students from across Australia to the Australian Snowy Mountains Alpine Region.
AIASF promotes winter and summer activities including skiing, snowboarding, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, trekking, abseiling, climbing and team/trust exercises.
In 2019 the AIASF conducted its 6th Winter Snow Sport program between 16 and 20 September, 2019, with Indigenous students travelling from from Tirkandi Inaburra in Coleambally (near Griffith in Central NSW), Eden on the NSW South Coast, Melbourne and Kellyville (a suburb of Western Sydney).
In 2019 we also conducted our inaugural Summer Program with 17 young women who participated in a team-building “Sista Speak” program.
In 2018 we took a group of 40 Indigenous teenagers from remote communities in Western Australia to Thredbo for 3 days of skiing and snowboarding.
In 2017 AIASF conducted a snowboarding program with Burton’s Chill Foundation bringing the Tirkandi Inaburra youth mob who experienced snowboarding and performed a traditional dance performance as a sign of gratitude. This performance was one of the few times in over 100 years that an aboriginal performance has occurred on the sacred mountain, Tar-gan-gil or Mount Kosciuszko.
National Indigenous TV (NITV) broadcast the segment below about our 2016 Winter Sports Program.
More information on this NITV segment can be found here, and a newspaper article about it can be found here.
AIASF’s overall objective is to provide a pathway to positive outcomes for Aboriginal youth using Winter and Summer Alpine sports as a tool for excellence and giving outstanding participants the opportunity to succeed, train and participate at the competitive level. We also provide employment pathways within the alpine region for participants once they have completed high school.
AIASF is a member of Just Reinvest NSW, whose aim is to to reduce the number of Aboriginal children and young people being locked up, and who have been working with the Aboriginal community in Bourke to demonstrate the benefits of a community-led justice reinvestment approach since 2012.
AIASF has been conducting programs since 2015 and is registered with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission as a Public Benevolent Institution and has Deductible Gift Recipient status from the Australian Taxation Office, so all donations over $2 are tax deductible.
We have come to a point where we are really in need of further funding, and so if you or anyone you know, can assist us either contact info@aiasf.org.au and we will happily provide our bank details, or use the ‘Donate’ button to the top-right to donate through Paypal (and they will get their commission).