Rising indigenous AFL star lends his light to issues close to his heart

By GEORGIA COMENSOLI

A young player for the Melbourne Demons Football Club is using his rising popularity to shed light on the disease trachoma and indigenous youth programs. 

Small forward Jay Kennedy-Harris is one of the club's three ambassadors for trachoma – an infectious eye disease that typically affects people in developing countries, but has also been found in some indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. It can cause blindness. 

The AFL star, who says he begged his mum to play AFL for his eighth birthday, is using his social media presence to focus on issues he cares about.

In March 2015, when the forced closure of indigenous communities was being discussed in Canberra, Kennedy-Harris took to Instagram and Twitter to highlight his views.

He is equally vocal about combating trachoma in Australia, the only developed country in the world to have communities affected by the disease. the Demons made him an ambassador to help combat the disease last year and he continues the work in 2016.

University of Melbourne PhD student Todd Fernando said  indigenous players "through their limelight" had an  opportunity to increase awareness of issues important to them. Mr Fernando studies medical anthropology, with a focus on indigenous policies.

This year, there are 74 indigenous players listed in the AFL – 9 per cent of the total player base.

“When players like Kennedy-Harris, [Adam] Goodes or [Nicky] Winmar highlight issues, they do so knowing that their intent on educating the wide mainstream population are focused narratives that are rarely spoken about in mainstream media,” Mr Fernando says.

Born and raised in Melbourne, Kennedy-Harris received an indigenous scholarship to attend Trinity Grammar School, where he says the school was “completely different” to what he was used to.

“I was pretty different to the people around me … [growing up] my dad wasn’t around which wasn’t great,” he says.

Kennedy-Harris says the scholarship helped him focus on his studies, and that there was a “huge AFL program which helped his transition into a private school system”.

This positive experience led to him wanting to help other indigenous students from different communities into transition schools, like the Melbourne Indigenous Transition School in Richmond. He often visits students as a mentor.

“I saw a lot of guys who came down from rural communities and couldn’t function in Melbourne, [an] urban society, so they would be gone in a year.  Their academic skills wouldn’t be up to scratch so they would be asked to leave,” he says.

Kennedy-Harris is studying, part-time, a double degree in construction and property management at Melbourne University. 

The fact it will be 10 years until he can graduate doesn’t deter the young star, who says he is “training upwards” – meaning he is improving his skill more and more each day.