INDIGENOUS BASKETBALL AUSTRALIA LIMITED
The company continued operating in accordance with its primary objectives of empowering, assisting and supporting disadvantaged Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, especially youths, to achieve better outcomes, improving their quality of life and empowering them across Australian communities. The company’s strategy in achieving those objectives focuses on using basketball as the mechanism to engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across Australia allowing the delivery of a wide range of programs designed to achieve positive outcomes and overcome the many challenges and barriers they face in the current Australian society, economy, and sporting structures. Addressing hardships faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people such as poverty, sickness, destitution, helplessness, suffering, misfortune, distress and discrimination, the organization utilizes basketball to engage the broader community to provide relief by encouraging participation, cultural preservation, pride in identity, personal development, and leadership development amongst Indigenous youth. The company is advancing the health and wellbeing of Indigenous Australians through programs that promote healthy lifestyles, education, and future leaders within communities across Australia. The company is nurturing the wellbeing of Indigenous Australians by providing placebased programs that impart education, cultural knowledge, pride in identity and traditional song and dance to Indigenous youth, nurturing cultural pride, strength, and resilience. These efforts contribute to building a sense of empowerment and emotional wellbeing, offering support against challenges such as distress and selfharm. The company takes a community driven approach in promoting reconciliation, mutual respect, and tolerance between groups of individuals by providing programs that establish a safe environment free of discrimination, criticism, judgement, and exclusion. This includes providing skill development, cultural education, and wellbeing programs. The company promotes establishing a sense of belonging within the wider community and serve as a platform to educate and address socioeconomic disadvantages, including provision of programs that are free of charge to participants thus eliminating a major barrier to participation and drives community engagement and participation via the newly established IBA programs. The company provides skill development and accreditation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants and culturally centered educational services to address critical wellbeing areas of concern for Indigenous youth. For the second year (2022 & 2023), the company has delivered programs across eight regions in Australia through the Indigenous Community Basketball League (ICBL) and the National Indigenous Basketball Tournament (NIBT), and for the first time in 2023 added the 17U age group, effectively doubling in size.