BEIRUT (Lebanon) - Ball'In Schools continues its reach across Asia with programs held in Saudi Arabia, Maldives, and Palestine in the early months of 2022.

Ball'In Schools is a grassroots basketball development project that aims to help plant the seeds of love for the game of basketball at a young age, especially in schools. In previous years, Ball'In Schools programs were held in Bhutan, Laos, and Oman, which were well-received in each respective country.

The program addresses the current and common challenges that slow down the development of basketball, such as the insufficient presence of the sport in schools; the absence of age groups competitions and tournaments, or the low quality of basketball infrastructure and limited accessibility. Ball'In Schools does so by empowering local ambassadors with a program to push for basketball in schools. These programs are trained by FIBA experts, where the ambassadors use what they've learned and take the initiative further to introduce or raise awareness.

The first Ball'In Schools program of 2022 was held in Ramallah, Palestine, from 2-5 February.

“Upon the program that was held in Palestine, I would like to thanks all the organizer that gave the Palestinian teachers, coaches, players and students new experience and knowledge that we will use in the future, which gives us a way to expand and develop the grassroots in all the cities and areas,” said President of the Palestine Basketball Federation (PBF), Ibrahim Habash.

Palestine have experienced some success at the regional level with the men's national team and being able to involve the sport even more at the grassroots level will be important to the growth of the game.

“It also puts us on the right track, how we can build and develop Palestinian basketball, which is through the schools, through organizing the Ball'in Schools program in our country, especially as it is an affordable program for any federation with great benefits,” added Habash.

The Ball'In Schools program then went on to Male, Maldives from 19-22 March.

"In our Ball'In School program, we focused on developing basketball in the islands; this will help increase the number of athletes across the nation,” said President of the Maldives Basketball Association (MBA), Mr. Ahmed Adam.

“More importantly, we will have new players at the grassroots level. We hope to have future programs in other parts of the country, he added.

The most recent country to host the Ball'In Schools program was Saudi Arabia. The program was held in Jeddah from 26-31 March and Riyadh from 2-7 April.

“As part of SBF's strategic programs in 2022, we are targeting to train and educate 1300 physical education teachers from both genders,” said President of Saudi Basketball Federation (SBF), Dr Ghassan Tashkandi. “This will assist us to promote, develop the game and identify talents, as well as prepare for the recently announced Basketball National School League in a collaboration between the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Sport.”

“Ball'in School is a well-fit program to fulfill our goal, and we really appreciate the great support we received from the FIBA Regional Office Asia to start this initiative. We have no doubt that we will observe the outcome of this program in the near future, he concluded.

The idea behind Ball'In Schools is the empowerment of local ambassadors to have a self-sustainable grassroots development program. Having more players and increasing the demand for basketball on its own should be the driver of the program to lead to long-term growth of basketball.

FIBA