Did you know that GingerCloud MRP now has a pathway for our MRP Players to become PlayerMentors?
2023 Expression of Interest is now open for our Player2PlayerMentor Pathway Program. GingerCloud’s MRP PlayerMentors support and teach rugby skills while providing friendship on and off the field for our young people with disability (MRP Players).
Get in touch with gcsupport@gingercloud.org to discuss the eligibility criteria for participation.
Congratulations Charlie!
As GingerCloud's Modified Rugby Program (MRP) 2022 season ends, let's celebrate our incredible Player2PlayerMentor participants. This year at our end of season carnival in Toowoomba we were incredibly honoured to celebrate Charlie Bragg as he graduated from the P2PM Pathway as a PlayerMentor.
Charlie has been with the MRP since 2015. The MRP has given Charlie the opportunity to do what he loves - play rugby. Charlie was invited to join the P2PM Pathway pilot in 2021 and has shown us, through his experience, the remarkable benefits of being involved.
"all kids, regardless of their disability, get to play a [team] sport they love as well as being able to get off the sideline……This is something many get to do [in the MRP] for the first time, which is really great...............Other players should join the program to experience positive and grateful feelings knowing that you are making a change in a child's life and giving them the same experiences that [you] got as a player."
Charlie is confident and excited to support other young people with Autism and other learning and perceptual disabilities in the MRP so they too can enjoy a team sport!
"[Being a P2PM] means being able to guide and mentor the next generation of players that are coming into the program.......giving them the same experiences that other mentors gave me when I was playing the game that I love."
The P2PM Pathway has allowed Charlie to learn and enhance his leadership skills with concepts such as consistency, problem-solving, giving and receiving feedback, empathy and how to lead by conversation.
"The three skills that I have learnt throughout this program are one, patience with players with [building] skills and [giving] instructions.... two, communication with players and other mentors and coaches..... and three, empathy and understanding of what the different challenges that every player has within their family life or on the rugby field."
The P2PM Pathway allows our young people with Autism and other learning and perceptual disability to develop and nurture new and existing leadership skills they can take out into the real world. Providing them with confidence to live their best life!
"I will use these skills within different workplaces once I leave school."
According to Charlie, the best advice he wants to share with all of us to help better understand people living with disabilities is,
"The best advice that I can give an able [bodied] person is [to] take a minute within your day and consider how children and adults with disability survive and how [they] cope with their every day-to-day tasks, and how you as an individual can make a change by giving an hour up every week to go and kick a footy around at training or a game. Or even if it's simply just checking on them or how including them in certain [activities] can have a massive impact on [their] life."
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What is involved in completing the PlayerMentor Pathway:
This unique pathway allows eligible MRP Players to take the 'next step' in the Modified Rugby Program (MRP) and become a PlayerMentor!
The Player2PlayerMentor Pathway has two components completed over two MRP Seasons:
1. On-field skills taught during training with the support of an experienced PlayerMentor, (Advanced PlayerMentor).
2. Fun, engaging online modules to be completed each week during the MRP Season, with the support of the GingerCloud team if required.
If this sounds like something, you think your child might be ready for in MRP Season 2023, get in touch with gcsupport@gingercloud.org to discuss the eligibility criteria for participation.
Or, to watch a sneak peek of this fabulous program, click here!
Through the Player2PlayerMentor Pathway, we aim to build the knowledge, skills and confidence of our young people with disabilities so they can live their best life!