Aboriginal Sports: What are you so Interested in, in the Heart / Soul / Mind?

Aboriginal Sports
Name:
Institution
Introduction
In recent years, numerous researches have been conducted in the Australian Indigenous population among the Aboriginal, and the Torres Strait Islander people. The researches have sought to identify the physical and mental health needs of these people. The findings have been compared with data from the other population to have a comprehensive analysis of the findings. Results by various governmental and non-governmental research groups have identified that diseases has contributed to the outcomes of the distinguished health and socio-economic disadvantage of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians (Rieck, 2012). The most common hospitalization reason among the indigenous Australians is because of lung diseases. It has been established that the number one risk factor for lung diseases is substance use.
Some of the prevention measures that have been undertaken by government agencies and non-governmental organizations include education, communication and public awareness on the dangers of smoking. Public awareness on risks of tobacco use as well as mass media evidence-based campaigns have played an important role in encouraging smokers among the Aboriginals to quit smoking (Rieck, 2012). In addition, firms such as United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Australia and Global Sport Fund have partnered to promote future based youth policies and drug abuse prevention measures through sports. However, one of the major problems is that promoting sports among the aboriginal communities has not been effective because of the continued use of traditional media platforms to promote these recreational activities
(Accardi, 2010).
My focus will be how to use social networks to promote sports among the aboriginal youths. Social Media is a great way to encourage sport participation by spreading the word about local sports and other general physical activity programmes among the aboriginal communities. Games play an important role among the aboriginal communities especially the youths. In the past years, aboriginal sports were played for reasons such as learning tools, spiritual learning hunting skills and entertainment. However, with the increased health and socio-economic disadvantage, the major reason for promoting sports in the present times is as a physical development activity and as a sensitizing activity with an aim of promoting health.
In 2008, a research called "Prevalence and risk factors for hepatitis C among Aboriginal adolescent offenders" was conducted by David van Poorten, Dianna T. Kenny and Jacob George. Their findings was that Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal adolescents used heroin and other injectable drugs which has a risk factor associated with the exposure of Hepatitis C
(Rieck, 2012). They recommended that interventions to prevent the spread of this virus was urgently needed to reduce f...