As he put five boys from south west Sydney through their paces during a running training session at their local park David Criniti knew he had work to do. After watching delight as they took off on the cross country course in an enthusiastic sprint, he saw them return shortly thereafter at a weary, near-walking pace.
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Murtaza Ali, Ali Mossavi, Reza Mossavi and Sayed Khalil Musavi, originally from Afghanistan, and Sulieman Yabarow from Somalia, are students at Chester Hill High School, preparing to run their first half marathon in January next year.
They have each been selected for the Run For Your Life Project, a running program for students from disadvantaged backgrounds which incorporates theoretical lessons with practical training.
"The idea is that we're equipping them with a whole bunch of essential life skills like goal setting, commitment and resilience," said Criniti, a teacher at Chester Hill School, who pioneered the program alongside Keith Hong, director of the sports events company, Buzz Events & Co.
The five boys chosen to participate in the program's first year are all refugees who moved to Australia, that, according to Criniti, "have already shown a lot of resilience to be here".
On November 1 the boys will tackle their first 10km race as part of The Sun-Herald Summer Starter, a fun run that is being held at Sydney Olympic Park. From there, they will start training for the half marathon that is being held in Hobart.
"As well as giving them a sense of achievement from being able to accomplish something that is well beyond anything they've done up until this point in time, and giving them skills that they can take into other areas of their lives, it's a portal into the running community that these students would otherwise not be engaged in," Criniti said.
Their training program involves a weekly meetup – a combination of theory and practice – in addition to at least three separate runs a week, that are each logged in their running diaries. The students are required to train in their own time, and keep fit outside group sessions, which they have to juggle in between personal commitments like transporting younger siblings to and from school.
Criniti, who won the Hobart marathon this year, and in 2009, has used the program as a way of teaching the students by sharing his talent. Next year, he and co-founder Hong, are hoping to expand the project by including a cohort of girls, before introducing it to other high schools across New South Wales.
