Sydney Swans player Lulu Pullar shares vision for new Central Australia Dreamtime Academy

A Sydney Swans AFLW player, who now calls Alice Springs home while working as an Emergency Department doctor, is setting up a footy academy in the Red Centre – and she wants your help. Find out why.

Lulu Pullar. Picture: Western Health

A footy player and Emergency Department doctor is fundraising a new footy academy for the Red Centre, and she’s doing it separately from her biggest backers – who just became $57 million richer.

Sydney Swans AFLW player Lulu Pullar now calls Alice Springs home while she works in the Alice Springs Hospital emergency department, and wants to give back to the community through the Dreamtime Academy.

Sydney Swans player Lulu Pullar also works in the ED at Alice Springs Hospital, and is now fundraising to get the Dreamtime Academy, four days of footy clinics for Indigenous women, off the ground. Picture: Supplied

“I sort of always had this vision of bringing an AFL girls camp to Central Australia … I wanted to create a girls and woman’s only footy camp,” she said.

Thus, the Dreamtime Academy was born, and now four days of football clinics aimed at young Indigenous women are set to take place in Alice Springs from April 9 to 12, she said.

The academy will also travel to Hermannsburg (Ntaria) for a day as well, she said.

Dr Pullar has secured the help of the Alice Springs Town Council, Central Australian Aboriginal Congress, the Redtail’s Pinktail’s Right Tracks program, and more to get the academy off the ground.

At the end of February, the Redtails received a $57 million donation from Queensland earthmoving company Q H & M Birt.

Redtail’s Pinktail’s Right Tracks program president Rob Clarke. Picture: Gera Kazakov

To help further fund the academy, Dr Pullar has started a GoFundMe and has set a target of $4000.

But the idea for the academy came before the Redtail’s got their massive donation, and her academy is separate from the Redtail’s, Dr Pullar said.

“When I started training with (Redtail’s president) Rob (Clarke) in his program and I saw all the outreach work he does in remote communities and saw all the participants that he has in his own program in Alice, I thought this is the perfect person to collaborate with to do this,” she said.

“It is independent of Rob and his funding.”

Dr Pullar said Mr Clarke even offered money for the academy, but she refused so she “can make my organisation completely independent”.

“Lulu was doing this down the track well before she had any idea that this donation was coming,” Mr Clarke told this masthead.

“She just realised that she could do so much more as a high profile, as an elite sportswoman.”

Money raised from the GoFundMe for the Dreamtime Academy will go towards operational costs for the camp as well as helping bring some extra AFLW talent along too, Dr Pullar said.

Sydney Swans player Lulu Pullar at Traeger Park, Alice Springs. Picture: Supplied

Dr Pullar said stars such as Brownlow Medal winning Hawks captain Emily Bates, Lions goal-of-the-year winner Courtney Hodder, Tiwi product and Crows player Danielle Ponter and more are set to take part in the camp.

“The funds are also going to be used to support future camps as well,” she said.

“Obviously there’s a lot of expenses that go into getting these programs running particularly in such remote communities like Central Australia.”

Originally published as Sydney Swans player Lulu Pullar shares vision for new Central Australia Dreamtime Academy