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When Reponse grew up in Rwanda, he learnt to play football in harsh conditions.
On the pitch, there were rocks and tree roots in the way – missing a kick was a painful price to pay.
But Reponse played anyway.
"Never give up," Reponse says.
Under pressure
Reponse and his family came to Australia as refugees in 2019.
They were in search of a better life, and now live in Victoria's Sunraysia region on permanent protection visas.
But it was challenging being in a new country, unable to communicate with anyone.
"My first day at school was tough," Reponse says.
"I was the only kid who couldn't speak English. I started school late because of COVID and a lot of the kids were ahead of me.
"It was hard to make friends, it was hard to communicate with anyone, and I felt uncomfortable."
A lunchtime game to remember
Reponse attended the Mildura English Language Centre, which prepares refugee and migrant students for entry into mainstream education.
His older brother Austin was at the school too and knew more English, so he told some of the other students Reponse was keen to play soccer.
Reponse was sitting by himself one lunchtime when some of the students asked if he wanted to play a friendly game.
"I couldn't understand them," he says.
"They asked my brother to translate for me and he told me the kids wanted me to join them.
"I said yes."
That day, the football pitch became the classroom, as Reponse learnt the words he heard his new friends using.
"I tried to copy other kids when they spoke in English," he says.
"They taught me, 'pass the ball, catch the ball' and would show me the action so I could understand."
With a talent for goalkeeping, Reponse made some impressive saves and helped his team to victory.
"The other kids were proud of me, they said, 'Good game,' and shook my hand," he says.
"I was very proud of myself, and my brother said, 'Good job.'"
Keeping up
After that first friendly match, Reponse joined in every lunchtime soccer game.
The more he played, the stronger his language skills became, and this continued off the football field too.
"My communication improved every day because I picked up on more words and I made more friends," Reponse says.
"We'd hang out at the park, have barbecues, we'd go to the skate park, and they'd take me fishing at the river."
Reponse tried out for a Mildura football team and impressed the coach. He was asked to be the goalkeeper for the under-16s side, the next age group up.
But when the game started, Reponse realised the kids were bigger than him.
"I got scared. I was worried I was going to get injured and felt nervous I couldn't save the shots," he says.
"They were taller, older and more experienced."
Reponse's older brother Austin helped him tackle the fear head-on, training every day.
"I'd save a few shots, but he'd push me to do better," Reponse says.
"He'd tell me to go in the net, face the ball, wherever the ball goes, that's where you go.
"Now, the kids at school and my coaches fight to get me on their team."
Kicking goals
This year, Reponse debuted in a senior men's match and kept up on the pitch, saving all but one goal.
He aspires to play professionally if the opportunity arises.
But Reponse says his main priority is to be a good sport and stay strong, like the footballers he admires.
"I look up to [Lionel] Messi," he says.
"He had his struggle when he was young and he came to make it big. Now he's a professional player and he's number one.
"My ambition is to keep my head up, even if I lose a game.
"You can always come back, so never give up."
Through football, Reponse found a community that made him feel welcome, included and accepted.
He says sport teaches young people to embrace one another.
"You meet many people from different backgrounds and come together to play the sport you love," he says.
"Sometimes if you watch professional games, there is racism happening but we've got to understand each other.
"It doesn't matter where you come from, your background, how you look or your skin colour, it's the game we enjoy so we should try to support each other."
Putting community back into sports
As a coach and community leader, Maia Tua-Davidson knows firsthand the impact that cultural inclusion in sports clubs has on wider society.
Tua-Davidson, from the Māori tribe/iwi, Ngāti Raukawa, is a former Kiwi Fern, playing in New Zealand's national women's Rugby League team among other rugby union and league sides, and has a vast coaching history in both codes.
Tua-Davidson is also a health and physical education teacher by trade, and is the national manager of Welcoming Clubs.
It's an initiative under non-partisan organisation Welcoming Australia, conducting programs for clubs to embrace sport and recreation as a path to inclusion.
"It's not revolutionary. It's actually a reversion to really traditional values of what people used to do when someone new moved into a community," Tua-Davidson says.
"I think 50 years ago you would say to them, 'Hey, do you want to come down to the footy club or the netball club.'
"We've moved away from that. Society has put us into little boxes and we've been a little bit fearful of people that are different."
Tua-Davidson runs workshops, sharing active steps sports clubs can take to include people from diverse backgrounds.
"The first thing we do is ask clubs to have a look around at who is in their club community and who's in their broader community," she says.
"If that's not a match-up, then that's where the opportunity is."
The rugby coach says self-reflection is key to clubs understanding barriers different people might face, such as knowing how to join a club, time, money and transport.
She says adapting volunteer expectations or modifying membership fees can make a big difference.
"We really get people to dig into why they do what they do," Tua-Davidson says.
"If you love your club, if you love your code and you love your community, why wouldn't you share it with as many people as possible?"
And alongside tools to boost multicultural inclusion, Tua-Davidson says spaces must be safe.
"Having anti-racism foundations, accountable systems for preventing and responding to racism and discrimination, and making sure everybody in that community knows they are responsible for ensuring it's safe," she says.
Media, sport and racism
Karen Farquharson says sport needs to reassess the way it responds to racial vilification.
She is a professor of sociology and the chair of the Anti-Racism Hallmark Research Initiative at the University of Melbourne, whose research focuses on racism and diversity, particularly in the realm of media and sport.
"How can you manage those situations in a way that makes the people who are being victimised by racism feel better about it than they do at the moment," she says.
"They might get pulled from the field to protect them, or the person who has been racist towards them probably doesn't have any repercussions.
"Most of the kids or the adults who experience racism on the field just ignore it because it's just too hard otherwise.
"And if they do complain about it, they end up being the problem, and that's exactly the opposite of what it should be."
From the alleged racism towards First Nations players at the Hawthorne Football Club, to the targeted racism towards black Brazilian Real Madrid footballer Vinícius Júnior, Professor Farquharson says conversations in the public sphere have an impact.
"When Adam Goodes was being booed — in a way that's now commonly understood as being racist — all the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids watching that were learning that's what happens when you celebrate your culture," she says.
"Communities are affected by these things. It shuts them down, has them put their head down and just get on with it."
Professor Farquharson says minorities don't want to manage racism in addition to doing their job.
"They're training and trying to be good and trying to win. It's another layer of complication that just isn't necessary," she says.
"Wouldn't it be nice if we could imagine sport where that wasn't something that people had to deal with?"
The ABC's Takeover Mildura program gives a voice to young people across the Sunraysia region. If you would like to find out more, go to the Takeover website.