Te Hāpai New Zealand Rugby Community Impact Award – Finalist Includes Program Aimed At Asian Migrant Community

New Zealand Rugby has confirmed the three finalists for its 2023 Te Hāpai New Zealand Rugby Community Impact Award – and one of these is Steven Li who has been running a programme aimed at welcoming Asian migrants through rugby.

The Te Hāpai New Zealand Rugby Community Impact Award is one of two new awards for the annual NZ Rugby awards and it will “recognise an individual from a club, school, iwi, Provincial Union or Super Rugby club that has impacted their community across participation, culture, diversity and inclusion, women and girls, mental health and wellbeing, player welfare or leadership.”

“Steven Li, from Auckland, started and ran a programme to warmly welcome the Asian community to the sport, tailoring it to those without prior knowledge,” said the nomination. It adds, “Steven consistently demonstrated this commitment by energetically and patiently teaching newcomers the basics of rugby. He was a beacon of enthusiasm, showing up twice a week without fail to ensure that every participant, regardless of their familiarity with the sport, felt included and valued.”

Li used Rip Rugby (a non-contact development rugby program) to introduce the new players and it helped to have minimal to no physical contact.

In addition, he selected fields with “good grip using normal shoes and close to Asian population density regions to minimise equipment barriers and travel time for participants.”

The statement added that historically, rugby has been a relatively unfamiliar sport within the Asian migrant community, especially among the Chinese population. However, there have been NZ players with Asian heritage representatives on the national Sevens rugby teams most notably Tyla Nathan-Wong (2023 World Rugby Sevens Series women’s dream team and World Rugby Women’s Sevens Player of the Year 2023), and Tone Ng Shiu.

Te Hāpai New Zealand Rugby Community Impact Award Finalists

• Steven Li (Asian Non-Contact Rugby Program)
• Te Kahurangi Skelton (Otago Māori Rugby)
• Richard Perkins (Otago Rugby Football Union)

New Zealand Rugby CEO Mark Robinson said of the new awards. “We know that right across New Zealand many rugby clubs serve their communities far beyond rugby and recognising the great work of our clubs, with the support of Bunnings Warehouse, is a great inclusion in the awards. As is acknowledging the dedication from individuals across the game, we had some incredible nominations which highlight the special people involved in rugby.”

NZR has had ties with China, HKCR and more recently with Japanese rugby as they tried to bridge ties between the rugby-playing nations.

Rugby Development News – Asia & NZ

• Global Youth Sevens 2023 – Japan’s U18 Girls SDS Confirmed.
• Cross-Border Rugby 2024 – JRLO & Super Rugby NZ Teams Confirmed.
• Simon Raiwalui – World Rugby High-Performance Pathways and Player Development Manager.