Water Polo Australia delivers SpiderBall for Vanuatu Aquatics

In early 2019 Water Polo Australia (WPA) as approached by the Vanuatu Aquatic Federation to develop a dedicated resource for their program funded by the Australian Government’s Pacific Sports Partnerships (PSP) program in partnership with Oceania Swimming and Swimming Australia.

SpiderBall was custom designed for adolescents aged 13 to 18 in local Vanuatu communities to follow on from the program “Let’s Swim” junior Learn to Swim program developed by Swimming Australia for the Pacific Nations.

“We noticed that during the Learn to Swim class there were lots of little kids, but there were no teenagers to be seen,” said Nancy Miyake from Vanuatu Aquatics.

“Then we thought maybe we need to find a more social way to get them involved, and also we needed to get the girls down.

“And so we partnered with Water Polo Australia to create an introductory water polo program called SpiderBall, for teenagers,” she said.

WPA developed a dedicated delivery handbook with lesson plans for a 24 week curriculum, including water polo skills, games and key social messages; as well as sent a team to Vanuatu in late 2019 to train-up local deliverers. 

The social messages delivered through the program were co-developed by WPA and local Vanuatu youth centre and NGO, Wan Smol Bag. 

“The biggest changes we saw were in self confidence,” Jodi Devine from Wan Smol Bag said.

“There was a huge change in the amount of kids that agreed they were a good leader, there was an increase in the amount of kids that felt they had the power to make positive changes within their own communities.

“There was also a big change in the amount of kids that mentioned they felt safe and included during classes,” she said.

This pilot program then ran throughout 2020 with over 400 local participants exposed to water polo for the first time.

“Success is going to be that we have more and more participants in the program,” said Scott Nicholson, founder of Beach Water Polo Fours.

“We want the participants to be having a great time, and really enjoying the sport of water polo. If we can grow water polo in Vanuatu and the Pacific - that’s a fantastic result,” he said.

WPA would like to thank the team from Beach Water Polo Fours for their support in visiting Vanuatu to run the SpiderBall ‘train the trainer’ sessions and deliver elements of the WPA Community Coach course.