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Western Australia’s Young Person of the Year
ERCWA has a track record of supporting exceptional young Australians, Brenda Amito (pictured right) having taken home the award in 2019. Congratulations to Derek and Brenda for serving as outstanding role models for young Australians. We can’t wait to see what talent ERCWA will produce next.
“Brenda Amito is an amazing young woman. At just 14 years of age Brenda founded the ERCWA Multicultural AFL Umpiring Academy, an initiative that unites young Australians from diverse cultural backgrounds around the sport of AFL.
Having emigrated from Uganda to Australia with her family in 2007, Brenda was quick to join the Butler Falcons, a multicultural girls AFL team run by ERCWA. It was there that she was inspired to establish her Umpiring Academy.
ERCWA is one of the fantastic organisations that we support here in Australia. Stories like Brenda’s, of young women seizing control of their future are immensely inspiring to us and inform everything we do.”
A proud Whadjuk, Bindjareb, Yued and Wardarndi man of the Noongar Nation, Derek runs language, dance and leadership workshops. In 2020 he established “Boorloo Indigenous Youth Yarning Circles”, a community group for young people that meets on a monthly basis.
He is now Western Australia’s Young Person of the Year for his impressive work with Western Australian indigenous communities
