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Stuff from Johannesburg

NBA Africa and Opportunity International to Build Basketball Courts and Conduct Youth Clinics in Kenya and Rwanda

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NBA Africa and Opportunity International to Build Basketball Courts and Conduct Youth Clinics in Kenya and Rwanda:

NBA Africa and Opportunity International, a global nonprofit organization that develops innovative programs that use financial services, training and support to address some of the greatest challenges facing those living in poverty around the world, today announced a collaboration to build outdoor basketball courts and conduct youth clinics in Nairobi, Kenya and Kigali, Rwanda next year.  The collaboration will support NBA Africa’s commitment to build 1,000 courts in Africa over the next decade, including 100 in Kenya.

As part of the collaboration, NBA Africa and Opportunity International will also hold a development program for coaches and teachers in both cities aimed at providing them with skills and best practices in coaching, refereeing, game operations, event management, program administration, and more.

The announcement was made today by NBA Deputy Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer Mark Tatum, Opportunity International CEO Atul Tandon and five-time NBA champion Derek Fisher at a press conference in Nairobi.

“Our collaboration with Opportunity International reflects our commitment to investing in local basketball ecosystems across Africa and providing youth with the resources and opportunities to develop their leadership and basketball skills,” said Tatum.  “We look forward to working together to create safe spaces where Kenyan and Rwandan youth can play the game and participate in programs that help develop the next generation of coaches and mentors.”

“We are absolutely thrilled to work with NBA Africa to bring world-class basketball courts and coaches to Africa,” said Tandon.  “This initiative is key to our longstanding commitment to bring more education and more opportunities to the youth of Africa, and we are grateful to NBA Africa, NBA Deputy Commissioner Tatum, and our longtime friend and partner Sam Garvin for coming together to help build a rising Africa.”

The Jr. NBA, the league’s global youth basketball participation program for boys and girls, teaches the fundamental skills as well as the core values of the game at the grassroots level in an effort to help grow and improve the youth basketball experience for players, coaches and parents.  Last year, Jr. NBA programming directly reached more than 170,000 youth across Africa.

Per Kind Favour of APO

– MyZA

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From Sophiatown to Triomf

By 1963, Sophiatown had been physically razed to the ground. In a final act of psychological warfare, the government built a white working-class suburb over the rubble and named it Triumph (Triomf). They wanted to erase the very memory of Sophiatown from the landscape. For decades, the name Sophiatown disappeared from maps, replaced by the neat, sterile streets of the victors.

The “resurrection” of Sophiatown began officially in 2006, when the City of Johannesburg formally restored the original name to the suburb. Today, the neighborhood is a quiet, leafy residential area, but the ghosts of the “Paris of the Transvaal” are everywhere. The Sophiatown Heritage Centre, housed in the former home of Dr. A.B. Xuma (a former ANC president), is one of the few original buildings that escaped the bulldozers. Walking through the streets today, you can still find small markers of the past: a lone Victorian pillar, a specific tree mentioned in a poem, or the rebuilt St. Joseph’s Church.

The legacy of Sophiatown is not just one of tragedy, but of an indestructible cultural spirit. The music, the slang (Tsotsitaal), and the “Drum” era aesthetic continue to influence South African fashion and film today. It serves as a reminder that while you can bulldoze a house and rename a street, you cannot kill the soul of a place that once danced to the sound of a thousand saxophones.