NBA Africa and Agence Française de Développement’s (AFD), through their joint initiative Basketball Experience yesterday held a combined Jr. NBA clinic for deaf and non-deaf boys and girls ages 17 and under at Nairobi’s Kinyanjui Road Primary School.

The objective of the event was to showcase how sport, and basketball in particular, can promote inclusion of children with disabilities.

Launched in Nairobi last July, Basketball Experience is a youth development program that features weekly basketball and life-skills sessions in 50 Nairobi schools, educating Kenyan youth about the importance of physical and mental health and wellbeing.

Since July, the program has reached more than 8,000 boys and girls through basketball clinics and school assemblies led by 20 coaches (11 female coaches and nine male coaches) trained to deliver life skills and basketball activities.

“One of our priorities is to create an environment where all children are able to come out and play, and to learn from the game of basketball and express all the tenets of teamwork, hard work, winning and losing,” said NBA Kenya Senior Director and Country Operations Lead Michael Finley.

Other notable attendees included French Ambassador to Kenya Arnaud Suquet and AFD Kenya Country Director Anne-Gaël Chapuis,

The initiative builds on NBA Africa and AFD’s previous Basketball Experience programming in greater Casablanca, Morocco and Lagos, Nigeria, and aims to use basketball as a platform to promote social inclusion and inspire secondary school children as change makers in their communities. [Caleb Kibet]