Each year a group of young Indigenous men and women (aged between 18-30) apply to the Indigenous Marathon foundation to take part in the world famous New York City Marathon – with just six months of training.
The runners also train to become healthy lifestyle leaders within their communities promoting health and physical exercise in order to address the high instances of chronic disease such as diabetes, heart disease and renal failure.
Two team members from this years Indigenous Marathon Squad have spoken about the difficulties that many young people living in a remote Aboriginal communities face on a daily basis.
“Its hard to get out of a rut when you’ve grown up in it and you’re engulfed in it every day”-Cissy Johns Indigenous Marathon Squad 2021
Cissy Johns… a Ngaliwurru woman from Timber creek in the Northern Territory says while she has never ever been a runner and is more of a team sports person she thought joining the program would allow her to use the platform to get her messages out to her remote countrymen from the Katherine region to get better engaged.
Derrick Cusack a Kalkadoon man from Mt Isa in Qld told CAAMA that like many young Aboriginal men- he too had gone down the road of believing he was a warrior.
Members of the 2021 Indigenous Marathon Project
Matthew-Axten photo NT Education 
Tasma Rudeforth pwcaamaphoto 
Tristan Nelliman-Adams pwcaamaphoto 
Sherice Ansell pwcaamaphoto 
Clinton Bennell pwcaamaphoto 
Rachel Dean pwcaamaphoto 
Waynead Wolmby pwcaamaphoto 
Jye Roe Banks pwcaamaphoto
Listen to the full interview with Cissy Johns and Derrick Cusack here :