The Perth Glory Foundation is set to play a key role in getting thousands of older Western Australians moving more often as part of the national Move It Aus Better Ageing program.
The Foundation will lead Move Together WA (MTWA), an accessible and engaging digital behaviour program developed to increase the physical activity levels of older Australians across metropolitan and rural Western Australia.
Working closely with a number of other partners, including Football West, MTWA is a six-week physical activity program which will target over 15,000 older Western Australians who are connected to the football community and features elements including behaviour change theory, a buddy system and smart technology.
The Foundation has received a grant of $850,000 with which to develop, roll out, market and maintain the MTWA app, with a projected launch date in the middle of 2019.
The funding, which is part of a wider, $22.9m Federal government investment, was announced at a media conference held at Inglewood United FC on Monday and attended by the Minister for Sport, Senator Bridget McKenzie, Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care, Ken Wyatt, Glory Owner and Chairman Tony Sage and club legend and current Glory Westfield W-League Head Coach, Bobby Despotovski.
“I’m incredibly proud to announce the partnership with Perth Glory to build their digital capacity right down into the 230 local football clubs that we have here in the West,” said Minister McKenzie.
“Perth Glory will be using that digital platform to connect at a very local level and help local clubs get their senior volunteers and community members back into football and back participating in physical activity.”
Those sentiments were echoed by Tony Sage.
“One thing I didn’t realise when we first got involved in this program,” he said, “is that of our nearly 10,000 Glory members, almost 30% are over 65. So when the opportunity came to get involved in an exercise like this, we jumped at it.
“I think the initiative is a really good one and we’re going to give it a really big crack through our social media which means we’ll reach 70,000 people straight away.”
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