Dr Sonja Hood knows how important Australian Rules Football is to a community, having found solace in attending games as a child.

She first saw North Melbourne play at Arden Street at around seven or eight years old, and the club has been a part of her life ever since.

It provided a home away from home, and she cherishes the way it brings people of different backgrounds together.

"My parents divorced when I was five years old and my father was left with three of us on the weekends," Hood said.

"He had three girls and he didn't quite know what to do with us all, and in the end he hit on football, and that's what we did for my whole childhood."

"I still go now with three generations of family. For me, the real key thing about footy is that sense of belonging, and that sense of community, and that sense of being part of something, and that even when you come from a fractured family, which mine was, you still have something that you belong to."

"The great thing for me now is that my job now is introducing other people, new people, new arrivals to Australia to that sense of belonging, and that sense of family and that sense of what makes Australia and AFL great."

Hood is the General Manager of an initiative named 'The Huddle', which is supported by the North Melbourne Football Club and the Scanlon Foundation.

The goal is to improve social cohesion, and she focuses on teaching new Australians all about AFL.

This includes taking them to see North Melbourne games, and teaching children to kick, mark and handball.

Lindsay Thomas, Todd Goldstein, Andrew Swallow and Majak Daw are some of the names involved in the program, which has won several awards, including the 2013 National Sports Leadership Award.

And now, Hood's tireless efforts have seen her nominated for the 2013 Football Woman of the Year Award.

Hood's work brings her a thrill every day, but her most rewarding moment came when Daw played his first game for the Kangaroos.

"I had invited some of the students from the Noble Park English Language school," Hood said with a smile.

"These were boys from Afghanistan. There were four of them, and none of them were here with their mothers. They were here on their own. They'd all made the journey to Australia on their own. Seventeen-year-old boys, living on their own in community housing.

"When I arrived at Etihad Stadium, and I was there early, I walked around the ground and there were these four people sitting in 'The Huddle bays. I went, 'who is at the footy this early?' It was these boys.

"They'd come from Noble Park. The school had said to me 'they won't go, they won't be able to negotiate the trains'. They had. They had negotiated the trains, they'd come in, they were sitting in 'The Huddle' bays, and Majak took his first mark and kicked his first goal right in front of those bays.

"These four boys from Afghanistan. That's their first experience of footy, and that to me is probably my high point, I reckon.”