The Jr. NBA & AFD Basketball Experience aims to provide weekly sessions that will educate Kenyan youth on the significance of physical and mental health.
NBA Africa and Agence Française de Développement (AFD), France’s inclusive public financial institution dedicated to funding and providing technical assistance for projects that enhance the quality of life in developing and emerging economies, have revealed the initiation of the Jr. NBA & AFD Basketball Experience in Nairobi, Kenya.
The Basketball Experience program aims to foster the
development of young individuals through regular basketball and life-skills
sessions, with a focus on educating Kenyan youth on the significance of
physical and mental health and overall well-being.
The program expands on NBA Africa and AFD’s current
Basketball Experience initiatives in the larger Casablanca, Morocco and Lagos,
Nigeria, and seeks to utilize basketball as a means to advocate for social
integration and motivate high school students to become catalysts for change in
their respective localities.
In honor of the announcement, NBA Africa and AFD revealed
today the renovation of two outdoor basketball courts at Kenya Academy of
Sports (KAS) in Nairobi and organized a basketball workshop for 150 boys and
girls aged 16 and below. The upgraded courts are projected to benefit over a
thousand boys and girls from the nearby communities.
Arnaud Suquet, the French Ambassador to Kenya, Bertrand
Willocquet, the AFD Kenya Country Director, Michael Finley, the NBA Kenya
Senior Director and Country Operations Lead, and Kita Matungulu, the NBA Africa
Director of Basketball Operations, were all present at the unveiling.
“At AFD, we are team players. We strongly believe that greater impacts can
be reached when we work together and connect,” said Willocquet. “The NBA was our first partner in the field
of sport for development. Together, we
have launched the Jr. NBA & AFD Basketball Experience program that seeks to
promote youth empowerment and improve access to sport for all.”
“The launch of Jr. NBA & AFD Basketball Experience
reflects our commitment to making basketball more accessible to Kenyan youth
and teaching them about the importance of a healthy, active lifestyle,” said
Finley. “Our selection of the KAS as the
venue also speaks to our commitment to developing elite talent in Kenya. We thank AFD for sharing that commitment and
look forward to positively impacting the boys and girls who participate in this
program in the months and years to come.”
The Jr. NBA, the league's international youth basketball
participation program for boys and girls, imparts fundamental skills and core
values of the sport at the grassroots level, aiming to enhance the youth
basketball experience for players, coaches, and parents. In the previous year,
the Jr. NBA program directly reached over 170,000 young individuals across
Africa.