{"id":11961,"date":"2025-09-22T18:00:44","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T12:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anveshantech.in\/gteice\/?p=11961"},"modified":"2025-09-22T18:00:45","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T12:30:45","slug":"tuff-begins-its-journey-into-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anveshantech.in\/gteice\/2025\/09\/22\/tuff-begins-its-journey-into-australia\/","title":{"rendered":"TUFF begins its journey into Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Psychologist successfully using sport to stop children from being radicalised<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A CURRENT AFFAIR<\/a> 7:05pm May 11, 2017<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A British psychologist is hoping team sports will deter at-risk youth from being radicalised by ISIS or engaging in illegal activities as they grow older.
Dr Shamender Talwar and his colleague and co founder Anna Prior believe football is the best way to fight terror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dr Talwar with one of the TUFF FC teams in London<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSport has an incredible way of breaking barriers, so it\u2019s an education program that uses sport to lure the children in,\u201d he told A Current Affair.
\u201cWhen children are into sport or supporting their football team, or their cricket team, or their rugby team, they\u2019re passionate about their team.
Doesn\u2019t matter what colour you are or what background you\u2019re from, if you\u2019re wearing the same colours as me, I\u2019m basically your brother.\u201dc<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The TUFF model will be piloted in northern NSW<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms Prior & Dr Talwar\u2019s project was born in London, where they say young kids of Middle Eastern backgrounds are constantly targeted by ISIS.
So the psychologist helped co found The Unity of Faiths Foundation (TUFF).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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TUFF Co founder Anna Prior with TUFF FC girls in Europe<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChildren are targeted at puberty age and so it\u2019s important, for Australia\u2019s sake, to nip it in the bud now before the problem gets greater,\u201d said Dr Talwar.
\u201cInitially the project was there to support children who are under the poverty line, children that are going in gangs, children that were in the throws of going into drug addiction and more recently, radicalisation.\u201dsaid Ms Prior
\u201cMany have rejected the chance of going to Syria and through football, stopped them. And we realised this and that\u2019s how we\u2019ve educated and helped 33 children from Britain who could\u2019ve gone to Syria. Stopped them through football,\u201d he said.
The world has taken notice of TUFF FC (Football Community) project with the youths having been invited to Rome to be blessed by the Pope and invited to the White House by former US president Barack Obama.
Even Diego Maradona, one of the world\u2019s best soccer players, offered to be the team\u2019s patron.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dr Anne Aly, the first Australian Muslim woman elected to the Federal Parliament and a world-renowned counter-terrorism expert, would like to see the program rolled out across the nation<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Internationally renowned counter-terrorism expert Dr Anne Aly, the first Muslim woman elected to the Federal Parliament, believes the TUFF program will make a difference.
\u201cI think a program like this should run across the country,\u201d she said.
\u201cThe government needs to recognise the potential of these kinds of programs. But also recognise the seriousness of the issue and just how much we need to be focussing on these types of preventative programs as well as early intervention programs.\u201d
While more funding for counter-terrorism measures like foreign spy programs were announced in the Federal Budget, Dr Aly would like to see more measures like TUFF being funded.
\u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re doing enough at all, I don\u2019t think this government has taken it seriously enough at all,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dick Estens is keen to see the difference the program will make<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Australian of the Year 2008 NSW local hero finalist, Dick Estens, who has been working with disadvantaged youth for decades, is also excited to see what sort of difference the program can make.
\u201cI think there\u2019s plenty of work in Australia for TUFF FC to get its teeth into,\u201d he said.
\u201cI\u2019d like to see a program running in Western Sydney, I think Melbourne\u2019s got some areas as well. I think it helps bring cultures together.
\u201cKingscliff Soccer Club, in northern NSW, is about to embark on a pilot program with TUFF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Amanda Handisides is not concerned about her son becoming radicalised, but hopes it will help deter him from other kinds of anti-social behaviour<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amanda Handisides doesn\u2019t think her 11-year-old son, Justin, is in danger of being radicalised but she does believe the program will make a big difference in her local community.
\u201cI think it\u2019s fantastic to use a vehicle like sport to address the issues in our community,\u201d she said.
\u201cI think having an organisation like that come on board will just bring our community closer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Kingscliff Football Club president Jill Austin hopes the program will foster positive attitudes<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Club president Jill Austin says she jumped at the chance to use Dr Talwar\u2019s program at the club.
\u201cHere, locally, we just want to bring a sense of belonging back,\u201d she said.
\u201cIt will help them with integration, obviously people are moving to these areas, it\u2019s a great lifestyle here, so people are moving here. We realise that everybody deserves to be included.\u201d
Anna Prior and Dr Talwar plan to extend TUFF across Australia once it has been refocussed specifically for Australia through the Kingscliff pilot program.
\u201cWhat we do, we get the pilot program right here, we go to Sydney, we go to Melbourne, we go to other parts of Australia. We make the whole of Australia, all the children of Australia, proud to be Australian.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a9 Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2017<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A CURRENT AFFAIR<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

NATIONAL<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

WORLD<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Psychologist successfully using sport to stop children from being radicalised A CURRENT AFFAIR 7:05pm May 11, 2017 A British psychologist is hoping team sports will deter at-risk youth from being radicalised by ISIS or engaging in illegal activities as they grow older.Dr Shamender Talwar and his colleague and co founder Anna Prior believe football is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[141],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anveshantech.in\/gteice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anveshantech.in\/gteice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anveshantech.in\/gteice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anveshantech.in\/gteice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anveshantech.in\/gteice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11961"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/anveshantech.in\/gteice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11971,"href":"https:\/\/anveshantech.in\/gteice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11961\/revisions\/11971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anveshantech.in\/gteice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anveshantech.in\/gteice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anveshantech.in\/gteice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anveshantech.in\/gteice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}