Australian Olympic Indigenous Coaching Scholarship (AOICS) recipient Libby Cook-Black has always been passionate about sport, however, as an Indigenous woman from Far North Queensland has always found sport quite difficult to access.
Born on Thursday Island, Libby is a proud woman of the Samep Tribe, Erub Island in the East of Zenadth Kes, Far North Queensland. Libby moved to mainland Australia at a young age for school and it was there that her passion for sport grew.
“We are very limited with our resourcing the further north you go and there’s not a lot of opportunity, particularly for women in sport,” Libby said.
“After moving down to the mainland, I started to play club sport. It was great because it was something I had in common with the other women and girls I was playing with.
“Suddenly I wasn’t the girl from out of town or the First Nations women standing in the room, I was just one of the rugby seven players, the same as everyone else.
“That’s what sport really did for me, it made me feel safe and it made me feel comfortable.”
The Cairns-local is now drawing from her own experience to benefit the next generation, launching the not-for-profit The Female Co which aims to bridge the gap in sporting and educational opportunities for women and girls residing in regional areas and remote communities.
“The Female Co is something I have been dreaming of since I was 15 years old,” Libby said.
“I had moved to Sydney for school on a Netball scholarship and immediately saw a disparity in what I was receiving and what I had just experienced at home for the last 10 years.
“I think it’s definitely evolved from my lived experience and that need to bridge the gap between the opportunities that are available for women and girls in our metropolitan areas in comparison to our regional and remote areas.
“We have so many women in regional and remote communities with incredible talent. What typically happens is they miss out on reaching the high-performance level because of a lack of access to videos, or doctors, or even education.
“But, with today's technology, there really is no reason for them to miss out. That is where The Female Co comes in, to create equity in opportunities.”
Libby has come a long way from that childhood dream with The Female Co going from strength to strength.
Currently working with an elite squad, Libby is looking to continue pushing the boundaries in this space and create more opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in her community.
“I go to the gym every morning at 6am with athletes who have promise and who have committed to the program, and we train them.
“We are also moving into the emerging athlete pathway space, where we have young girls coming to camps in Cairns and teaching them how to make more informed decisions about their bodies, about what they’re eating and how they are training.
“We are also looking into opportunities where we can bring a couple of our elite athletes down to metropolitan areas to teach them skills and get them prepared for opportunities down south.
“Essentially, we are trying to act as the bridge between the opportunities from the North to the South, so it's not as big a culture shock for these talented athletes when they get selected for teams.”
Looking ahead, a long-term goal for Libby is to one day establish a residential college where young women can thrive academically, athletically and personally, not only for athletes but for all those who dream of a career in high-performance sport.
“I’d love to one day have a college which is a residential facility where our girls can come and access education, because really that's a key part of high performance on and off the field, in addition to training facilities and program development.
“I want to build a place where people from all areas of sport can go to try and make their dreams come true.”
