mission is to enhance aid and development strategies using the power of sport as a tool for social change in the Pacific, Asia, Africa and Indigenous Australia.  Gold Coast Recreation & Sport, through it's Rollerblaze wheelchair basketball programme, will share knowledge and expertise to ensure a very successful program is established in the Solomon Islands. 

Sport Matters was founded by Paralympic athlete Liesel Tesch and Jackie Lauff.  At a lunchtime wheelchair basketball demonstration at the University of Sydney in 1997, Jackie Lauff and Liesl Tesch met playing sport together.

As a very active youngster, Liesl Tesch was heading towards a career in conservation until she crashed her bicycle and broke her back in 1988, when she was 19 years old. As part of her rehabilitation a physiotherapist introduced Liesl to wheelchair basketball, and having played representative basketball with her University, it wasn't long before she was selected to play for NSW and then Australia.

It didn't take Liesl long to realise the benefits of sport for people with disabilities, and the unique power of wheelchair basketball to break down barriers having able-bodied people jump in a wheelchair and play too. She spent much of her later university life promoting sporting opportunities for people with disabilities whilst studying a Bachelor of Science and Diploma of Education.

Jackie Lauff was then in her 2nd year of Occupational Therapy studies and failed to return to her lectures that afternoon. As an able-bodied student, Jackie embraced the game of wheelchair basketball and immediately realised the value of sport to complement traditional rehabilitation. Jackie's passion for sport and development was sparked during a university placement in Fiji in 1999 with the Fiji National Games for the Disabled, and solidified during an Australian Youth Ambassador for Development (AYAD) placement with the Suva 2003 South Pacific Games Organising Committee.

Jackie and Liesl joined the organising committee for the inaugural Australian Women's Festival of Wheelchair Basketball in 1997, the first all-female wheelchair basketball competition to be held in Australia. Jackie played in a wheelchair along with a number of other able-bodied competitors. They have continued to play wheelchair basketball, with and against each other, for the past 14 years.

Gold Coast Recreation & Sport is delighted to be a part of this amazing venture and looks forward to participating in key initiatives to make wheelchair basketball "everyone's game". More information on the Solomons Islands project http://www.sportmatters.org.au/news.php#news1