Vanuatu's youth choose hoops as preferred holiday activity

PORT VILA - Children are normally very excited for school holidays to begin, and for the students of Vanuatu the excitement was palpable. Except this time, children of the Vanuatu Basketball Federation's (VBF) Hoops for Health (H4H) program had something else to look forward to. They are having so much fun participating in the initiative that they didn't want school to end.

Vanuatu officially launched their H4H program at the beginning of May this year. The H4H coaches have been visiting local school children to positively impact their lives, using basketball to teach kids about healthy food options in a fun environment.

The H4H coaches have become so popular with the local children that when it was time for school holidays to start, the kids were worried they would not get to see their favourite coaches. Luckily for them, the VBF has been running H4H holiday clinics for primary to high school age children during the break period.

The clinics ran for two weeks over the holiday period and saw trained H4H coaches take 50 kids through fundamental basketball drills that taught them proper shooting, passing and dribbling techniques. These new-found skills were put to the test throughout the clinic with the primary school students playing regular games of 3x3 basketball and the high school students playing 5x5 basketball.

"We wanted to keep interest going," said VBF's H4H Coordinator, Annie Obed. "In both the H4H program, and the game of basketball."

VBF also wanted to make sure that kids were making the right snacking choices over the school break. H4H coaches organised basketball games with incorporated health messages.

"Kids had to dribble the basketball to a selection of pictures and words with snack foods on them," explained Catherine Grawich, FIBA's regional coordinator for Hoops for Health. "Then choose the one that they thought was the healthiest choice."

The H4H health coaches had a guest coach who asked if she could volunteer during the holiday clinic. Brenna Mickey is working with the Vanuatu Department of Youth in Sport in the wake of the Cyclone Pam.

"VBF was very happy that Brenna wanted to help coach during our clinic. She plays basketball back in America and was great with the kids," said Obed.

The local children were extremely thankful towards the coaches and so happy to be able to participate in these clinics.

"There were so many smiling faces. Everyone was having so much fun," added Obed. "We were very happy with the turnout, it shows that the kids are really enjoying the H4H program."

Now that the school holiday period is over VBF will be continuing their H4H schools program. H4H would not be possible without the funding support of the Australian government's Pacific Sports Partnerships program.

FIBA