The Disability Sports Australia program turning chance encounters for children with disability into sporting dreams
Rae Anderson was 12, on a school trip to the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra, when a Paralympian leading the tour saw her potential and opened the door into a world she didn’t know existed: Paralympic sport.
That one chance encounter would eventually take Rae to two world championships, the Rio Paralympics, the Beijing Winter Paralympics and the ParaMatildas. But, as Rae sees it, it easily might never have happened.
“I happened to be scouted, so I didn’t have the opportunity to connect with my local community at an event like Abilities Unleashed as a child, because they just weren’t around,” says Rae, now 27 and one of Australia’s most versatile Olympians. “For me, it was luck.”
It’s that luck Rae has spent five years trying to remove for the next generation, through Abilities Unleashed, a national come-and-try program run by Disability Sports Australia (DSA). Bankstown Sports has supported it for three years, increasing its ClubGRANTS contribution from $10,000 to $20,000 and supporting events two days a year in the local community.
Rae was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at 12 months old and joined community sport at age eight. Her dad had two rules growing up: learn a musical instrument, and play a team sport.
“In my family, it was a case of I had to keep up, or I was going to miss out,” she says.
Rae has represented Australia in javelin and discus at two world championships and the Rio Paralympics, before javelin was dropped ahead of Tokyo. A lifelong skier, she pivoted to Para Alpine skiing, qualifying for Beijing 2022 and finishing seventh.
When the cost of chasing skiing full-time (around $30,000 for four months of qualifying) became unsustainable, Rae found a third calling: soccer. She joined the ParaMatildas, Australia’s first national team for women and girls with cerebral palsy, acquired brain injury and symptoms of stroke. She played in its first World Cup in 2022 and helped the team to win Football Australia’s first-ever World Cup in 2024.
In January 2021, Rae became state coordinator for Abilities Unleashed, later helping build it into a national DSA initiative. Her first event, in Blacktown, drew close to 200 children across eight sports.
Abilities Unleashed days let children with disability, alongside their schools, sample inclusive sports and find an ongoing local program.
The biggest misconception when it comes to participation, Rae says, is that sport for people with disability needs a lot of modification. “It’s just a matter of having the confidence to have those sorts of conversations,” she says.
The real barriers can be sporting clubs that wrongly assume they can’t cater for a child with disability, or won’t let them wear equipment such as an orthosis (brace) to play. Around one in eight Australian children and young people live with disability according to the Australlian Bureau of Statistics.
“People with disability are 13 percentage points less likely to participate in sport and physical activity, 78% versus 91%,” says Kristy Rohrer, DSA’s national participation and education manager. “Cost, transport, confidence and a lack of inclusive local opportunities are the biggest obstacles families tell us about.”
For Michael Hanratty, Bankstown Sports’ sporting and community partnership manager, the program was a natural fit with the club’s commitment to grassroots sport.
“We have a proud history of supporting local sport, and we believe that sport should be accessible to everyone, regardless of ability, gender, age, or any other way you want to slice the population,” he says. “I was really impressed with Abilities Unleashed, as a way to provide kids with disability with a taster session of multiple sports over the course of a day.”
Rae Anderson (right) got into sport through DSA, became a Paralympian and now works at the charity
Bankstown Sports supports 37 local sporting clubs across 17 codes and has also brought DSA in for a workshop at these clubs on building and adapting programs for players with disabilities.
“We are hopeful our clubs take these learnings to attract and welcome more potential participants into their sporting clubs.”
The partnership comes at a time when funding for disability sport is under pressure. Under the new Play Well Investment Framework, Australian Sports Commission (ASC) funding has been cut from $217,000 to $135,000, a reduction the ASC attributes to its assessment criteria, leaving DSA leaning more on donations and partners like Bankstown Sports.
For the next Abilities Unleashed event in October, Michael’s hopes are simple.
“Elevated heart rates, lots of movement, lots of smiles and a massive turnout of local kids engaging in a great sport experience.”
For Rae, the mission is more personal. “These days have changed so many lives, and that is basically our vision: changing lives,” she says.
“My life is so much more than what it could have been, because of opportunities given to me purely through chance. If we can have those chance meetings younger and sooner, the changes I’ve seen could be opened up to everyone in our community.”
Find out more about Abilities Unleashed and upcoming events at the Disability Sports Australia website sports.org.au
ABILITIES UNLEASHED EVENTS 2026
16 September
Liverpool
Whitlam Leisure Centre
21 October
Camden
Oran Park Leisure Centre
28 October
Condell Park
Bankstown Basketball Stadium
27 November
Alexandria
Perry Park Recreational Centre
