Pssst Robert Dirdi enjoys a run and bounce at the Gunbalanya School. A chance to kick ahead For most of the year the rest of the world is the place beyond the water from Gunbalanya in west Arnhem Land. When the East Alligator River stops being a river and becomes a sprawling flood plain and the small community pokes up from the inland sea like a small island, the only way in and out is by plane. But for many locals, reaching out to the world takes far more than a plane ride. It takes more than a plane flight to commit to leave the community to further their education to be able to access a job. Esther Djayhgurrnga did it. She left the community of 1600 in Gunbalanya (or Oenpelli), went to secondary school, then university in Darwin and has returned as principal of the school. "There are some jobs, but it is very, very limited, very high unemployment," Ms Djayhgurrnga said. It is hard to keep the kids at school when they see their parents with no jobs. But we have to try to change the whole attitude of the parents to education for their kids. We have to educate the students but also the parents to continue working with them in a positive way so that one day they can see their child's future. I am from here [and] I went away and got educated, but I had wonderful relatives, old people, who worked with me. It was the most important asset I had, they worked with me. I didn't organise to be a principal, they did. It is satisfying, it is a long way I had to go to be a principal, it is a lot of pressure, a lot of hurdles but I had to be strong to be able to be where I am today, not an easy task. The Gunbalanya School is well equipped, with young, enthusiastic teachers. Last year they had two students graduate high school. It was widely celebrated. This year they hope there will be five. The school incorporates a football program, run by the Clontarf Foundation, into the regular curriculum. It uses football to help foster an enthusiasm for school among the students and instructs them in a broader education about diet and healthy living. "One of the biggest interests of people which they can all relate to in the community is football, so using that as a vehicle to get students to school and the community involved in a positive way is really good," said Lee Stewart, director of the Clontarf Foundation in Gunbalanya. Precious few of the kids at the school own or have access to footy boots. Most play football as a barefoot sport. The school has a synthetic turf playing area, as well as a large open-air basketball gym. There is an oval nearby, which has in recent years begun being watered and is now green, as well as red dirt roads and play areas where the kids kick balls all day between classes. When they play structured games for teams on the main oval, the vast majority of the kids are barefoot. Yet some of the kids from the community have been capable enough players to go on to make the under-15 territory team and the shortlist for the Flying Boomerangs national indigenous under-16 team. The Age has now launched the Boots For Kids campaign, asking people to donate their kids' footy boots at the end of their junior season by dropping them into boxes in Coles supermarkets, from where Linfox will truck them to remote destinations across Australia to take them to kids who have none. Walking through the community here you have one shop and one servo, so the possibility to even purchase boots if you did have the money to spend on them is just not there, especially considering the community is cut off from Darwin for six months a year. It means they can't afford or have access to boots in the area," Stewart said. There is definitely a high level of natural talent in all sports here but especially football. Teaching the football program is not just about football, it is teaching the kids about nutrition and their general health, which in the communities is a problem. The average life expectancy [in remote communities like Gunbalanya] for example is significantly lower even than indigenous Australians across the rest of Australia. There are a lot of issues but clearly a big issue is nutrition, when you look at year 9, year 10 boys here and compare them to year 9 or 10 boys in major centres, there is a physical difference just looking at them and that is nutrition based. So the football programs connecting the love of football to broader education is fundamental in these life lessons. Thus donating boots to the community through The Age's Boots for Kids campaign is not only about putting a smile on a face by putting boots on feet and feeling good about giving to someone who has nothing, it is about the idea that harnessing enthusiasm for a game might have untold other benefits. Numbers up $1084 to as little as $16 will be the cost of tickets to the World Cup in Brazil. The prices were announced on Friday by soccer's world governing body FIFA. The $16 tickets will be available to Brazilian students, Brazilians over 60 and members of some social programs. Host nation residents will have access to at least 400,000 discounted tickets from the publicly available total of about three million. What they should do ... ... is set up a trade system in Test cricket similar to the one in the AFL. We could then try to trade Shane Watson to England for Aleem Dar - and draft a fair dinkum match-winner onto our side. - GARY SAYER, Warrnambool