• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Asia Rugby

Regional Association of the Governing Body for the Global Game

Bringing Asia together
through the spirit of Rugby

  • Follow Us
  • Subscribe
  • Download
  • Home
  • About Asia Rugby
    • COUNCIL & EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
    • Asia Rugby Photos
    • History
    • Membership
    • Asia Rugby Documents
    • Asia Rugby Awards
    • Asia Rugby President
  • Fixtures & Results
    • Asia Rugby Sevens Series
    • Asia Rugby Championship
    • Asia Rugby Sevens Trophy
  • Calendar
    • Training and Education Calendar 2023
    • AR Digital T&E 2023
    • Calendar 2023
    • Asia Rugby Committees Meeting Schedule 2022
  • News
  • Asia Rugby TV
  • Unions
  • The Game
    • Get Into Rugby Asia
    • Pass It Back
    • Womens Rugby
    • Match Officials
    • Player Welfare Medical Committee
    • Training & Education
    • Keep Rugby Clean #AsiaRugby
    • World Rugby Laws
    • Rugby World Cup 2019
    • Committees
    • Jobs
    • ARLP Learning Portal
  • Unstoppable Asia
    • Top 80
    • Top 32
    • Top 15
  • Contact Us
Safeguarding

Asia Rugby promotes Child Safeguarding in Sport with Safeguarding Working Group

26 April, 2018 in Hong Kong, Lao, Philippines, A1M, Womens Rugby, News, Medical #playerwelfare, Pass It Back by Asia Rugby

Asia Rugby’s Safeguarding Working Group was launched in 2018 to provide advice and support to its member unions on best practice child safeguarding, in-line with UNICEF’s International Safeguards for Children in Sport.

The Safeguarding Working Group sits under Asia Rugby’s Player Welfare & Medical Committee. The formation of the Safeguarding Working Group shows Asia Rugby taking steps to ensure that plans for incremental growth of the game across the region take place in a safe environment.

Asia Rugby’s current Strategic Plan runs until 2020 and one of its key pillars is to “make rugby the choice sport of youth played by all genders, people of different shapes, sizes, ages and across every segment of society.” One of its pillars requires all unions to “adopt internationally recognized gender inclusion and safeguarding strategies.”

Asia Rugby Women's Sevens Trophy

There are already a number of unions who have shown significant progress in both areas and the Working Group will build upon the experience of these unions and key lessons learned in order to provide support to other unions to be able to achieve positive progress to make their rugby activities a safe space for children. With the recent creation also of a Gender Inclusion Committee, the Regional Association is taking significant steps to also lead the way in gender inclusion in rugby.

“The importance of safeguarding can’t be underestimated. We’ve taken it on board and it is part of our strategic plan. All current and would-be new members must have a safeguarding policy for their rugby communities,” commented Ross Mitchell, Asia Rugby’s General Manager.

It is an exciting time for Asia Rugby with the Rugby World Cup and the Olympics set to be hosted in Japan in 2019 and 2020 respectively. Several participation and development initiatives are well underway with Asia 1 Million being Asia Rugby’s flagship project to recruit a million new players, coaches and officials by 2019.

Toward this goal, Asia Rugby is working in partnership with ChildFund, Women Win and World Rugby for the ChildFund Pass It Back program currently operating in Laos and the Philippines, where there are member unions, and in Vietnam through ChildFund Vietnam, with expansion plans set for the coming year.

The regional program uses tag rugby to deliver life skills education and works with more than 6,000 young people, 54% of whom are female.

Pass it back award

Through the Pass It Back program, ChildFund has also been leading a safeguarding and gender inclusion in sport initiative in the 3 countries to develop and improve child safeguarding standards and strengthen institutional practice.

The lessons learnt through this initiative will be shared with Asia Rugby’s Safeguarding Working Group to disseminate to and support other member unions in preparing their own safeguarding policies and procedures.

“ChildFund Pass It Back focuses on creating a safe space for children to participate in sport, not just physical safety but importantly emotional safety, too,” commented ChildFund Pass It Back Regional Director Chris Mastaglio.

Ridzal Saat, Rugby Services Manager for Asia commented, “ChildFund comes from an area of expertise which we don’t have in sports. It means that our members know what they have to do. Safeguarding is not just about having a policy, it’s about how they actually implement that policy. Our unions need support, and safeguarding has become part of criteria for World Rugby membership so working with a partner who has expertise in this area really helps our member unions and us.”

The Hong Kong Rugby Union in particular has also taken steps to develop child safeguarding practice across its rugby community, with a range of community engagement initiatives and child safeguarding content built into coach training blocks. The lessons from Hong Kong’s experience also bring valuable examples and perspective to the Safeguarding Working Group

Through their efforts, ChildFund in Vietnam and the unions in Laos, the Philippines and Hong Kong have emerged as safeguarding leaders in the region and their experiences will be instrumental to the Safeguarding Working Group’s work plan over the course of the year and in subsequent years, in order to work towards achieving strong institutional child safeguarding practice across rugby in Asia.

Using all of these lessons, the Working Group will be developing key support resources to enable Asia Rugby’s Player Welfare & Medical Committee to provide a strong template that can be applied to other development programs in the region to aid member unions to develop strong, relevant policy documents, which are contextualized to each individual country.

Importantly, the Working Group will also implement an action plan designed to support member unions to be able to provide evidence of application at all levels of their work. Subsequent workshops and trainings will follow at all levels of the game throughout the year, to ensure that personnel at different levels of each union are aware of their responsibilities to safeguard children.

Related

Safeguarding

Filed Under: Hong Kong, Lao, Philippines, A1M, Womens Rugby, News, Medical #playerwelfare, Pass It Back Tagged: Safeguarding, Hong Kong, Philippines, Lao

Primary Sidebar

Categories

Asia Rugby
Tweets by asiarugby

Footer

Resources

  • Home
  • About Asia Rugby
  • Get Into Rugby Asia
  • Pass It Back
  • Game Resources
  • Match Officials
  • Medical Resources
  • Training & Education
  • Subscribe

News Central

  • Photo Galleries
  • Rugby Unions
  • Fixtures & Results
  • Videos
  • Events

Corporate Information

  • Council
  • COUNCIL & EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
  • Asia Rugby Members
  • History
  • Contact Us
  • Jobs
  • Press Coverage
  • Advertise
  • Privacy Policy

Sign up

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

© 2023 Asia Rugby Football Union Pte Ltd, All Rights Reserved.

Website by Web Designer Singapore

  • Follow Us
  • Subscribe
  • Download