Marie Little OAM
A keen netballer, Little was inspired in 2013 to create an annual competition to provide the opportunity for netballers with an intellectual disability to compete at national tournaments. In interviews Little explained her rationale:
“it was an innocent question from a young girl with a disability who asked why she couldn’t play netball.” And so, ever the compassionate activist, Little instigated what has become the Marie Little Shield -so named in her honour.
As a protagonist for inclusivity, Little particularly championed inclusion for all athletes with an intellectual impairment at every level of competition in all sports including national and state level sport.
In her early years in Victoria, through her radio program, Little had advocated for women in sport. Soon that advocacy of equality, justice and impartiality in sport expanded into supporting athletes, male and female, with a disability. In 1982, she was elected the inaugural President of SASRAPID (South Australian Sport and Recreation Association for People with Integration Difficulties). Four years later that expanded to AUSRAPID and she started to argue the case with state and national sports organisations for fairness and inclusion for people with an intellectual disability in mainstream sport.
Little’s benevolence and concern for athletes with an intellectual disability now extended beyond her love of Netball to include all Sport. It saw her become a founding Director of the Australian Paralympic Federation and then be elected as the first female Member of the International Paralympic Committee's Executive Board from 1993 to 1997 .
After first advocating for inclusion of people with an intellectual impairment into community sport in the 1970s, the Marie Little Shield 2024 is a shining example of how an individual with compassion, empathy, drive and commitment can and has made a difference.