Share a Yarn
Connecting athletes with First Nations communities and helping them become advocates within their sport.
Mentors
In an exciting first, four First Nations sportspeople will mentor 10 athletes appointed as the 2022 AIS Share a Yarn ambassadors.
Over the next 12 months, the mentors will help enhance the athletes’ knowledge and understanding of First Nations culture, whilst helping them become advocates within their own sporting communities.
Brad Hore - Boxing
Brad competed in two Olympics as a Flyweight Boxer at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and the 2004 Athens Olympics. As an athlete, Brad has competed at an international level for over 25 years as an amateur and professional boxer. Brad’s connection to his Indigenous community, his passion for Australian sport and his cultural practice provide Brad with the expertise as a member of the Australian Olympic Indigenous Advisory Committee and motivational speaker in schools all over Australia.
It's great to have First Nations athletes as mentors/leaders for Share a Yarn. I would have loved a program like Share a Yarn where I could learn and be supported by First Nations leaders so for me to be in the position to mentor and provide guidance to athletes to assist them in not only being great within their sport but to provide them skills to be great community leaders is such a privilege.
Danny Morseu - Basketball
Danny Morseu was born on Thursday Island in the Torres Strait. In 1979 he played for the St Kilda team that won Australia's inaugural National Basketball League (NBL) championship. The following year he became the first Torres Strait Islander to represent Australia at an Olympic Games - he played in seven matches at the Moscow Olympics, and in a further eight at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. In 1987, playing for the Brisbane Bullets, he won another NBL title. In April 2003, having played a total of 217 NBL matches over ten seasons, he became the first Indigenous player to be inducted into the NBL's Hall of Fame.
I think it’s important to tell my story about my journey, experiences and influences as an Olympic Basketballer player; playing around the world and in the National Basketball League in Australia. And the challenges as an athlete from an Indigenous perspective for changes economically, socially and culturally for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia.
Josie Janz-Dawson - Netball
Josie represented West Coast Fever in the ANZ Championships as an elite netball player from 2008 to 2016, before joining Severn Stars and Team Bath in the UK Netball Super League. Josie formerly held netball scholarships at the AIS and WAIS and represented Australia at the U/21 level.
Josie is currently a board member of the Waalitj Foundation, Western Australian Institute of Sport and Indigenous Basketball Australia and as a proud Torres Strait Islands woman who grew up in Derby, West-Kimberley Josie is passionate about providing talented athletes across Western Australia with pathways and support to excel at the highest levels of the sport. Josie is the Executive Leader of Education Programs at Wirrpanda Foundation, where she leads the implementation of programs that empower and enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islands youth to lead positive and healthy lifestyles.
I feel it's a great opportunity to be an AIS Share a Yarn mentor as I've been working with our First Nations People for a long time building positive self-confidence and an awareness of shame and how we can overcome barriers to achieve our success. We always knew that at some stage we would be shifting our focus to work intensely with our allies. A lot of people have great intention but still lack the awareness and understanding of how to create culturally safe and appropriate spaces to ensure we are being inclusive to everyone. If I have a captive audience that are willing to learn how to work with our First Nations People I will do as much as I can to inform them. It's time we open up this conversation and make it everyone's business, we (as First Nations People) cannot do it all on our own.’’
Tanisha Stanton - Multiple sports
I am Gamilaroi Yuwaalaraay by birth. Optimist by nature. A former athlete through history. University graduate through western education. Journalist through necessity and a storyteller through diligence.
The title of a mentor is one I do not take lightly. Having had a number of incredible mentors throughout my short 26 years of life, there has been one thing they've all had in common; they saw the higher parts of me when they were hidden from my view. I hope to instill that same belief into someone else.