South Coast Police District and local sporting legend get ready for the 2025 Domestic Violence Awareness Cup.

South Coast Police District,  Group 7 Rugby League and the NRL get ready to host more than 200 students for the 2025 Domestic Violence Awareness Cup.

Transcript

00:00We've got six schools that are engaged in the program this year, which is really great.

00:04We've had our police from the Crime Prevention Unit working on this for a number of years now, as you've indicated.

00:10Five schools last year, six this year.

00:13They're really excited to see the program building up.

00:16The schools are engaged in designing their own jerseys and playing with those.

00:20And then we align the day with a number of support networks and organisations that come there to the ground

00:27and just highlight the prevalence of domestic violence and how we can provide support to the younger generation

00:34to try and curb what's going on in currently domestic violence around our cities.

00:39It's also to provide some advice around what healthy relationships look like

00:43and if, in fact, they do need some assistance, where to go to to get that assistance.

00:47You know, a lot of people on the South Coast, especially in the Shellhaven, play rugby league.

00:51And rugby league's more than just a sport.

00:53Trust me, I can talk from the bottom of my heart saying that because at the end of the day,

00:56it's not just about winning and losing.

00:58It's about that community connection.

01:00It's about finding people within your community who are role models, who are trusted adults,

01:05who are people that you can talk to if you or someone you may not be going through domestic violence.

01:09But not only that, as actually mentors in our community, you can find that in the sporting space.

01:15Now, sometimes kids, as hard as it can be, and I've got four kids of my own,

01:18you know, sometimes they don't want to talk to mum and dad about their issues,

01:21but they may talk to, you know, a rugby league coach, a sports trainer, a secretary, a president,

01:26a trusted adult in their community.

01:27And that's what we want to, that's what we really want to highlight here and want to encourage is,

01:32you know, kids to, you know, kids to go outside of their comfort zone,

01:35kids to get an education, kids to get an understanding of what support options are out there

01:40and not just domestic violence in any parts of, in any parts of their life.

01:44Yeah, I think for our guys, obviously we're not the experts in the field of talking about domestic violence.

01:49I think it's more of just about encouraging young males and females to speak up.

01:54And I think this program does that through the opportunity of educating the students around domestic violence

02:01or if they see something going on or feel that, that they can feel confident to go and speak to those

02:07and those organisations after we come here, they get to know, so we're building relationships with them.