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Footy Coaching Clinic: Empowering Indonesian Women through Australian Rules Football

18 Apr 2019

Footy Coaching Clinic: Empowering Indonesian Women through Australian Rules Football

Project Leader: Ana Surjanto

University of Origin: Master, Monash University

Collaborating Organisations: Ma’had Al Jami’ah of IAIN Salatiga

Project Locations : Salatiga   

Activity Type : Capacity building, mentoring or coaching  

Sector : Education and training, Human resources development
Women and Gender Studies 

Project Rationale:

The cases of violence against women in Indonesia have increased dramatically from 2013 to 2017. The National Committee of Women Affairs in their report demonstrated that there are 279.760 violence against women in 2013 and become 348.446 in 2017 (Komnas Perempuan, 2018). Many women have become the victims in violence including sexual and verbal harassment, human trafficking, and raping such as in Central Java, Legal Resources Center for Gender Justice and Human Rights (2018) reported that there are 766 cases of violence against women in 2013 and increased become 2.737 cases. Surprisingly from another case that involved women in Java context, there were two suicide bombings in churches of Surabaya East Java on 13 May 2018 in which the suspect is a family that involved a wife and her two daughters. According to Indonesian Islamic Council (MUI, 2018) that they did bombing caused by the miss interpretation of the verse of the Koran (Islamic holy book) and the influence of internet in which they are interested in joining Jihadis (Islamic extremist group) as they see from social media such as ISIS. Thus, it is needed to develop human resources especially in Islamic boarding school (Ma’had Al Jami’ah/ Pondok Pesantren) that promote the pluralistic and inclusive society as the effort to deter the society from extremism and the need to empower women that enable to educate better society.


Since Islam has become a key influence in Indonesian country and, as we can see from the history, many Muslims contributed to the struggle for Indonesian Independence in 1945 (Rosyada, 2014). The education programs in Pondok Pesantren should educate the students with an intercultural experience to enable them to open to people from different cultures and religions. Besides the education should more concern to empower women due to Indonesian demographic bonus that the number of women is larger than men. Therefore, giving the female students opportunity to experience other culture; in this context through Footy (Australian Rules Football) Coaching Clinic, will be effective to promote gender equality and to enable women to be open-minded.


Ministry of Religious Affairs works together with Ministry of Finance just launched Beasiswa Santri (Scholarship for Islamic boarding schools’ student to pursue postgraduate studies). This scholarship means that the students who have graduated from Islamic boarding school are eligible to continue higher study either in Indonesia or abroad such as Australia. Lastly, Footy Coaching Clinic can be a good way to empower women in staying healthy and to promote gender equality that women in Pondok Pesantren are able to play football.


In our conviction, the Footy Coaching Clinic will contribute as one of the significant factors for Islamic boarding school to successfully develop an inclusive society with understanding other culture and empower the female students to take role in sport. In our discussion with the principal, committees and some students of IAIN Salatiga that nowadays there are gaps like grouping or making gangs in Pondok Pesantren. They have less socialization and togetherness with other friends, they prefer to spend their leisure time using gadget that resulted lack of confidence and self esteem in socializing with other friends. Following by the female students’ opinion, they need bonding activity such as playing sport that break those gaps and facilitate their leisure time to close with other friends. Hopefully, the Footy Coaching Clinic will lead to healthy and inclusive society and become a pilot project in developing intercultural understanding in Central Java Indonesia.

Project Beneficiaries:

200 female students and 15 committees in Ma’had Al Jami’ah of IAIN Salatiga Project Location

Priority Development Area:

An inclusive society through effective governance      

Links with Australia:

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