The Huddle Launches Online Tool for Youth
May 29, 2020
Sport and STEM Alliance member, the North Melbourne Football Club, is just one of eighteen teams in the Australian Football League (AFL). The club along with their community arm, The Huddle, recently launched an interactive online tool designed to assist young people in finding their internal compass and help them discover who they are.
This initiative, ‘True North’, features the team’s biggest stars sharing their personal values and stories in hopes to encourage others to do the same.
The Huddle is incorporating the ‘True North’ portal as a part of the new STEAM (A for Arts) unit of Inquiry for release in June 2020. Jasper Pittard, a North defender, is one of many athletes from the club joining the cause by sharing stories through video on multiple topics such as leadership and resilience. One topic Pittard opens on is a value that hits close to home for him, compassion. “I was brought up in my family to always be wary of other people and their feelings and trying to pick up when people are feeling up or down,” Pittard said.“For me it’s really important to be aware of other people in the world and what they’re going through, and showing that you care. And it also just takes your mind off yourself as well so that's pretty important to me.”
Making the effort to understand others' views and opinions is the name of the game when it comes to showing compassion for Pittard. “You’re not always going to agree with people and certainly there’s some things I don’t agree with," he said.
“But just trying to understand why they think like that and just because you think a certain way, doesn’t mean it’s the right or wrong way, they’re just different."
Something the Sport and STEM Alliance strives for is educating younger students on how to collaborate and push boundaries. Sport is the perfect way to engage these students in STEM and set them up for endless opportunities.
“I think being in a footy club has allowed me to really work on collaborating with people and you’re not to going to be able to collaborate with the same type of people all the time; you want to be with your mates and like-minded people, but sometimes you’re just not going to be and you've still got to make that work,” Pittard said. And in only his second year with the club, the twenty-nine-year-old understands the importance of working together to achieve something great. “We’re all trying to work towards a common goal at the footy club and that’s a premiership, so sometimes you’re going to have to work with people that your values might not align.”
Born in Melbourne, Victoria Pittard knows he may feel more at home than others and through lessons he learned as a child is able to provide support for those who feel out of place. “I think helping other people, I get a real buzz out of that. My parents always taught me to, whenever there was someone you’d seen left out or picked on or anything, be the one to get around them. I’ve felt like the times where I have been the one to kind of go, 'I’ll check in with that person or introduce myself to that person', generally it has been a positive experience.”