OUTSTANDING young athlete Tyler Orr has  just spent the early part of 2020  far away from the rigors of playing high-level but helping a community devastated by the Kangaroo Island bushfires.

Inspired by her social-worker father Mark, the pair headed to the Island early in the new year to help where they could.

Orr, 20, caught up with another rising star of the sport, Georgie Horjus, who reloacted from the Island to the mainland a couple of years ago with her parents to be closer to netball games and training.

Some of Horjus' family lives on the Island but their properties were spared.

Tyler said the Island's community spirit was amazing.

"It was my dad Mark's idea to come over," Orr said.

"He is a social worker and a real people's person so he thought it would be a good idea to go and help.

"I caught up with Georgie and we drove around places, delivering coffees to the workers and helping clean up people's yards.

"When people were evacuated we took them down to the beach to try and help them take their minds off what was happening.

"We were only there for a short time but it was heartbreaking seeing some people who had lost everything.''

Meanwile, Orr and seven other SASI athletes selected in the 2019/20 Australian Netball World Youth Cup squad, are heading to a training camp at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra from February 14.

A combination of excellent results in the Suncorp Super League, national netball titles, Australian Netball League and training camps in 2019 have gone toward the athletes gaining the selectors' attentions.

The eight players from SA are: Nyah Allen, Lucy Austin, Chelsea Blackman (already made several appearances with the Thunderbirds), Georgia Dent, Kimberley Hearnden, Horjus, Orr and Tayla Williams.

Hearnden is still eligible for under-17 competitions, while Blackman, Dent, Orr and Williams have finished their under-19 commitments and will be striving to make the ANL competition which is a feeder comp for the Suncorp Super Netball League.

It will have several matches among the group and work on various combinations.

A second squad selection is expected to be made in about August 2020.

Those athletes will represent Australia on a tour of Fiji and play several matches to prepare for the international competition in Suva for the world cup in 2021.

Australia has won the netball youth world cup four times - in 1988, 1996, 2000 and 2009.