Richmond Football Club diversity and inclusion officer, Rana Hussain, was last month selected to take part in the US Consulate's International Leadership Program.
Hussain, who is one of just three Australians selected, will travel to the United States in July for the three-week program.
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She will share her expertise and undertake research into diversity and inclusion in sport.
“Sport is a great vehicle for change,” she explained.
“It’s cliché but everyone is equal on the playing field. Once someone is out on the ground it is only their talent that they are judged by.”
Hussain was born in Melbourne to Indian parents and is a practicing Muslim. She was one of, if not the first, hijabi to work at an AFL club.
“I am really proud of the work that we get to do here at the Richmond Football Club. When I started, we had a solid base around the Indigenous work we were doing and we have since been eager to do more around multiculturalism, which is reflected in the areas I work in now,” she said.
“There are very few industries where you can come in and make changes the way we can. I will be on the program to learn but I am also going to showcase what we have been up to.
“I’m pretty honoured and I feel very lucky to be given this opportunity, but it’s just one thing on the back of the great work the Club’s doing.”
Hussain pointed out the Bachar Houli Academy, the Club's work within Korin Gamadji Institute, and its wheelchair football team as examples of sport and its power to create connection.
“Seeing the changes in the wheelchair players’ lives and what it meant to them to be able to play and be part of the Richmond brand is amazing," she said.
“Some of them were coming from hardship and it’s been a joy to see the way their health and wellbeing has improved with that extra purpose and sense of belonging.”
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Hussain is most excited about meeting leaders working in diversity and inclusion with grass roots basketball in New York, where like Melbourne, she believes there is a multicultural society grappling with its identity.
“I grew up (in Melbourne) feeling like my parents were a bit different and alien, I struggled to explain to my school friends my background,” she said.
“The more that big organisations and society can understand our inherent diversity the less and less those feelings will become.
“I hope that when my daughter is a Muslim mother picking up her kid from school she is not seen as different, instead I hope it is just part of who we are as a nation.”
