Programs
PANSA advocates strongly for quality and proactive engagement and ensure all our sporting programs are safe and accessible for everybody in our communities. We have strong role models and mentors working in our programs to encourage and guide our participants, continuing the work started by African community leaders many years ago.
Young people with migrant backgrounds can face significant barriers to participation in community activities. These barriers include cost, lack of transport, negative perceptions of migrants and racism. All of this can lead to social isolation, marginalisation and unfortunately sometimes ultimately to negative or anti-social behaviour.
Our programs are around improving lives and providing opportunities while tackling barriers and health risks. We listen to our community and participants to bring the best possible programs to life.
ANNUAL PERTH AFRICAN NATIONS CUP, since 2008! (MAKE SMOKING HISTORY PAN CUP 2025)
Please refer to our facebook page for current news and information about the summer 2025 program, currently active at Ashfield Reserve, Ashfield, in partnership with Ashfield Sports Club.
SPORT ADVANCING MALE MULTICULTURAL ENGAGEMENT
From 2025 to 2026 thanks to City of Stirling’s Active and Healthy Communities grant funding, we are working with Balga Soccer Club and City of Stirling and the multicultural community to deliver boys and men’s-only sport sessions where our multicultural staff team will deliver fun, safe and culturally appropriate sport and social activities parallel to the 2026 winter football season and pre-season, focusing around social connectedness, positive mental health and respectful relationships.
Contact us to register early interest to get involved.
YOUTHS EVENING SPORTS
In 2025-26 in partnership with WA Police, PANSA is delivering a multicultural youths program focused on ages 12-16 at-risk youths. We are delivering lifestyle and smart – safe choices education and mentorship through our multicultural staff team with youths able to experience an excellent 3-hour sport program with dinner and transport home in two locations (Ellenbrook and Gosnells) from October 2025 to March 2026;
MULTICULTURAL OUTREACH PARTICIPATION PROGRAM
From 2025 to 2026 thanks to the Department of Home Affairs Multicultural Grassroots grant funding, after 18 years of the social movement behind PANSA, we are working with the community to deliver excellent sport programs where our multicultural staff team can interview attendees and participants to measure community views and attitudes. We will also provide empowering advice on how discriminatory, racist and biased conduct and systems can be taken on and broken down with an emphasis on personal and social justice. We are:
- Fostering a cohesive multicultural Australia.
- Increasing understanding of racial, religious and cultural diversity.
- Fostering integration through increased levels of social participation by culturally and linguistically diverse Australians.
- Fostering a sense of community and belonging among culturally and linguistically diverse communities.
- Increasing tolerance and understanding of cultural diversity and working to reduce instances of discrimination and racism.
- Increasing rates of social participation by multicultural community members.
- Increasing rates of culturally diverse Australians feeling a sense of belonging.
SPORT ADVANCING FEMALE MULTICULTURAL INCLUSION
From 2024 to 2027 thanks to the Play our Way Australian Government grant funding, PANSA is working with the community to break down barriers for multicultural women in sport and social activity. In the first half of the program we have been stunned with the interest in female only programs and have vastly exceeded participation rate expectations and the variety of girls and women and their situations which hae made this program a regular part of their lifestyles.
This dedicated female-only physical activity program for multicultural women and across three Perth-metro sites with a fourth soon to be announced. Operating out of communities with high female multicultural populations, we deliver weekly 2-hour sport sessions with health and wellbeing advice, socialising, snacks and an occasional group meal.
By tailoring activities to cultural sensitivities and abilities, and having multicultural female peer leaders deliver the program, we are breaking down the barriers around awareness, accessibility and cost that have traditionally contributed to low participation rate of multicultural females in sports activities.
The overarching goal is increasing physical activity across girls and women from a diverse range of cultural backgrounds, while supporting people to better and healthier lifestyles.
Ashfield flyer coming soon
South of River venue coming online soon.
Contact us to register interest to get involved.
A SPORTING CHANCE – 2024-25 Post-Program Summary
Thanks to funding support from the Community Gaming Trust, through Department of Local Government, Sport and Culture Industries, PANSA delivered a 12-month community sport group support program.
Returning to the roots of the PAN Cup movement, where community sport groups set aside rivalries and differences to embrace harmony and common ground through sport and unity, PANSA delivered a new set of services to support groups to address current and emerging major issues in the community.
The program’s key focuses were:
- Supporting people to recognise problem gambling and avert people becoming trapped in a gambling habit
- Empowering community sport groups with technical support of coaches, including advice, seeking equipment to run those activities and helping structure training and strategy
- Helping groups to acquire funding and resources including venues and funds to underpin their activities
- Helping groups recognise mental health issues in their peers and equipping them with knowledge and strategies to get help and improve and save lives
- Educating talented youths in the traps of aligning with bookies and match and spot fixing
What’s the smarter bet? Your skills, your training, your future—or a gambling app designed to make you lose?
Focus on training, not chasing losses. Invest in your future, not the bookies’ profits. Build your skills, not a gambling habit.
Need help? Call 1800 858 858 or visit gamblinghelponline.org.au #ASportingChance #GamblingAwareness #InvestInYourself #SportForGood #PANSA / https://www.pansa.org.au/betting-on-yourself-the-true…/
WELL MEANING TO WELL EQUIPPED IN MULTICULTURAL SPORT (2024-25 Post-program Summary)
This Project was supported through Volunteering WA’s Volunteer Management Activity, funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services.
This project focused on multicultural sporting groups associated with PANSA and broke down barriers limiting culturally and linguistically (CaLD) community participation as volunteers in sports – focusing on newly arrived migrants and youth (aged 12-18). We:
- held candid conversations to understand obstacles, then developed solutions to overcome these obstacles.
- supported groups to expand their volunteer base and provide training, mentorship and resources for groups
- Mapped and learned about the issues of each group.
SAFER COMMUNITIES (2022-24 Post-program Summary)
This Project was supported through Department of Home Affairs Safer Communities Funding and many supporting organisations; including:
- City of Wanneroo
- Jaguar FC
- ECU Chequers Volleyball Club
- City of Stirling
- Kitwek Association of WA
PANSA PROGRAM AMBASSADORS
We have strong role models and mentors working in our programs to encourage and guide our participants.
Part of our program is to provide opportunities for our participants to display their talents and be selected for development programs with leagues and clubs.
We have already seen a number of young African–Australian sportsmen and women break into elite levels of football, soccer and basketball. They are doing incredible work in breaking down barriers but there is more to be done.
PANSA’s four ambassadors have first-hand experience of the power of sport to bring people together. Each moved to Australia at a young age — it was through sport that they made friends and found their way in their new home.
Through taking opportunities and hard work, each has reached an elite level in his chosen sport. Now they are helping PANSA inspire and mentor the next generation of young African–Australian sportspeople.
Ajang Ajang: Perth Football Club (WAFL)
Thomas Deng: Socceroos debut, 2018
Sunday Dech: Adelaide 36ers
Friday Zico: International footballer
Sunday Dech
Sunday Dech was born in Ethiopia, a country known for producing a conveyor belt of world-class long distance runners.
He is the second oldest child of seven and was six years old when his parents moved to Australia, a place that very soon became home.
“It’s a blur now, but I remember bits of life in Africa but nothing substantial.” Sunday said. “At six years old I went through the transition period of learning English, I was lucky I went to some really good schools and was able pick it up really quickly. As you know kids pick things up at a rapid rate.”
Ajang Ajang
“I am pretty sure if you asked any other Sudanese person, or anyone from a background like mine they will tell you that our parents, our mothers, are our superheroes.” Ajang Ajang said with the emotion in his voice as strong as ever. “I can’t put into words how hard it must have been for them to leave their life behind and try and find a new one for us kids. Theirs is a huge sacrifice. They had no childhood; they were in a war, or escaping a war since they were little kids. My goal in life is to try and make everything better for her, that is what I strive for.”
Ajang, or “AJ” as he is affectionately known was born in Kakuma Refugee camp in Kenya. His parents had been there for almost ten years, having arrived soon after the Sudanese civil war broke out.
Thomas Deng
“I was six years old when we moved to Australia and we lived in Adelaide at first before moving to Melbourne at the end of 2011.” Australian international footballer Thomas Deng advised.
That move to Australia in 2003 was to be a huge move for the family. Deng’s parents had already fled the civil war in Sudan and settled in Nairobi where Thomas was born. Now they were leaving Africa to embark on a new life in a new country.
Thomas admitted that his memories of Kenya are limited, “I have more memories of Adelaide. It was the first place we went to and it was where my brother and me began playing soccer, and actually taking it seriously. We played at an Italian club and spent five or six years there. Adelaide Blue Eagles was our first club.”
Friday Zico
In the Western world we are told that ‘home’ is where we belong. It is a place where you feel safe and confident.
South Sudan’s Friday Zico believes that once you find your place, only then will you feel like you belong.
Zico was born in South Sudan but has no recollection of his parents leaving their home and heading to Uganda.
“I was only a few months old when we left but my parents told us how thousands and thousands crossed over the border during the civil war in Sudan.”