Port Moresby (Papua New Guinea) - Basketball Federation of Papua New Guinea (BFPNG) delivered their Mum's A Hero Program in the Disciplinary Forces' Wives Friendly Games (DFWFG) that was held at the Bomana Police College in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea on June 7-10.

The DFWFG sporting event invites the wives of police officers, offering its participants a variety of sporting events to compete in. The program started in 2018 at the Taurama Barracks (1RPIR) and in its second-year extended their invitations to the Correctional Services and Police Training College in Bomana.

"Our focus is to promote unity in response to the growing interdependence of all disciplined officers’ wives. We want to neutralize social conflicts within the barracks community, infighting and domestic violence; and of course to ensure physical and mental health and fitness is maintained," shared Stephanie Manning the Coordinator of DFWFG.

BFPNG viewed the DFWFG as an excellent opportunity to integrate their Mum's A Hero program for the women and girls participating in the event.

"We are more than happy to help out and deliver our Mum's A Hero program with Stephanie and her team, and the outcome was great! We saw a lot of women enjoying and learning the game of basketball," said BFPNG Executive Officer Stephen Damien.

The Hoops For Health program is an Australian aid initiative implemented by Basketball Federation of Papua New Guinea on behalf of the Australian Government.

Stephanie Manning is proud to share their accomplishments and also revealed the future goals of DFWFG to form a select team for international events.

"I believe it was a successful weekend and we have achieved it to an extent, but also we have cemented a contract of good growing relationships that we confidently can say will help the 3 Forces to achieve bigger plans to strengthen the relationship with each other," she said.

"One of our goals that have popped up is that we are planning to select a Masters Team of Disciplinary Wives to the games in Cairns and Brisbane. It is gaining interest and we will be planning to it," she added.

The 3rd DFWFG is already being planned for 2020 which will be hosted by the Correctional Services in Port Moresby whilst targeting the date around the Queen's birthday.

"We plan to invite more barracks and communities to participate next year and continue to build DFWFG. We are also planning to ask help from the Papua New Guinea Sports Foundation and National Olympic Committee in delivering our event," Manning shared.

Meanwhile, BFPNG has strongly signified its intent in supporting the Games in the future.

"This is a wonderful event for the women involved in Port Moresby and we hope it continues to get bigger. We are committed to help out and take an even more active role for future events," said Damien.

FIBA