Twelfth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

In 2018, Bese Health Club (BHC) was founded in Hanuabada Village, on the outskirts of Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) capital Port Moresby (POM). BHC is a community initiated and run village gym, aiming to engage people in health promotion and sports education, and it’s success necessitated increased amenities. Through consultation with BHC users, the concept of ‘Gym-In-A-Box’ (GIAB) was born; a 20ft shipping container converted into a multipurpose community centre: retrofit with ventilation and non-slip flooring, with a main gym area and a multi-function room that can be used as a meeting space, classroom, or pop-up medical clinic. Since GIAB’s launch in December 2019 it has had over 130 users visiting multiple times, with 35% of all users female. Fitness classes for older community members (aged >50) have 6 regular attendees, and so far 15 community members have completed education in Strength and Conditioning (S&C) training and have received an S&C coaching certification. These community coaches provide supervision and coaching for GIAB users, including various sports teams, and several other villages have now expressed interest in obtaining their own GIAB (Papa, Tatana, Vabukori, Pari, Elevala, Babaka and Hula). Providing grass roots infrastructure and capacity facilitates increased and safer participation in health and fitness activities, and providing this across the Pacific is possible with GIAB. GIAB is scalable and sustainable due to it’s transportability, customizability and the provision of S&C training for community members, and is intended to be self-governed and run as a social enterprise.