Basketball For Good voices shares the stories of individuals whose lives have been changed through basketball. They show the positive impact that basketball can have on people and communities.

Alhassan Sedky is an athlete from Egypt. After suffering an accident, he was introduced to wheelchair basketball. The sport gave him many opportunities that he is now paying forward by developing the sport in his home country.

 “I had played able bodied basketball since I was 8 or 9. I had my accident when I was 18 years old.

As part of rehab, they introduced me to wheelchair basketball. Being ignorant about the sport, I was reluctant to play at first, I thought it wasn’t going to be as interesting. Once I started playing, I got hooked on it right away and didn’t want to stop playing.

I've always been an athletic person. Sports has always been my coping mechanism even before my accident.

Not having that when I first got injured was a little bit frustrating. That didn't last for long, I started playing basketball maybe three or four months after my injury. It helped me because I am a very active person, I like to exert energy all around. 

When I went back to Egypt, I spent quite a bit of time trying to find somewhere to play. Unfortunately, the sport isn’t really developed in Egypt, there aren’t many places to play because of lack of accessibility and facilities.  

I kept asking around until I was lucky enough to talk to someone from the National Team. They were kind enough to let me practice with them.

Something that I love about wheelchair basketball is teamwork. It's the same in basketball but not to the same extent.  

Where in able-bodied basketball you can do a lot of 1 on 1 moves, in wheelchair basketball, that's not really a thing, you must work as a team.

Regardless of your classification or what you do on the court, everyone has a role. People are doing different things, but they're all valuable. 

I wanted to continue playing so I applied to the University of Texas in Arlington and received a scholarship to play there. It was an amazing experience. I learned so much, grew so much, it completely changed my life. During my time there, I spent five years learning the game.

I wish that everyone in a similar situation would have this opportunity where they can receive an education and feel ‘normal’.  

I think sports gives you a sense of normality that you don't really get with anything else just because there is this stigma for people with disabilities that ‘hey, you can't do this, you can't do that, that’s very associated with physicality. 

Some people end up being very successful in their fields intellectually, but when it comes to the physical part, being able to play sports breaks that barrier. You can act like there's nothing really missing.

Sports also opens up so many doors for kids to get out of their homes, to live a normal life, to meet other people and feel comfortable in their shoes and be proud of who they are versus feeling insecure about their disability. It's just like, “okay, I have a disability, but I'm doing things that a lot of able-bodied people cannot do”.

My mom and I built a foundation (Alhassan Foundation) a year into my accident. For some reason my accident got famous in Egypt, so a lot of people started reaching out to help.

We started off by getting customized wheelchairs. Our goal was to make sure that any person with a disability is included in society. For a person to be included, they need to have two things so they can live on their own without the help of anyone: physical independence and financial independence.

From there, we built 8 different projects. Each of these projects falls under either the physical independence umbrella or the financial independence umbrella: having the wheelchair, being able to move on your own and getting to work and not having to depend financially on someone. 

And it just exploded. In 2013, it was just me and one other guy. Today we're serving more than 6’000 members. 

But one of my one of my biggest goals is to develop wheelchair basketball in Egypt. This has been something I've been working on ever since I moved to the US. Sports changed my life and gave me an opportunity that I probably would have never had if it wasn't for wheelchair basketball and I'm trying to do the same things for other young athletes in Egypt. 

I started bringing chairs back from the US and talking to coaches, classifiers. That’s how I got involved with IWBF (International Wheelchair Basketball Federation). I reached out to try and have a tournament in Egypt and asking them for guidance on how to build something like this in Egypt. I am now part of the IWBF’s athlete steering committee.

We just started developing the first wheelchair basketball grassroots program in Egypt where we're bringing in little kids, teaching them the game and giving them the opportunity to start playing basketball from a young age so they can get out of their comfort zone, engage in the community and be active. This is something that really didn't exist in Egypt before. 

It's very interesting. You see the parents looking at their kids and they can't really believe it, their kids are falling out of their chairs playing wheelchair basketball, and their parents are being super protective. 

But it's part of teaching the parents that ‘Okay. This is normal. Let your kids live. Let them live out their life. Let them fall, they’re going to figure it out somehow. They're going to get back up’.

It's a whole experience, not just sports, it's using sports as a as a tool for inclusion in society. "

About Basketball For Good

The FIBA Foundation was founded in 2008 by the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) to address the role of sports and particularly basketball in society, preserving and promoting basketball’s values and its cultural heritage.

With its Basketball For Good projects, the Foundation delivers youth engagement programs that promote education, health and well-being, and fight injustice and inequality through basketball.