WINDHOEK (Namibia) - Namibian Youth Leader, Al-Ticious Links visited the House of Basketball during the 10th edition of the FIBA Open, as the representative of this year’s donation recipient organization, Basketball Artists School (BAS) Foundation. 

As part of the giving culture of the FIBA Foundation, the profit from this year's FIBA Open will go towards furthering the social impact of the BAS Foundation. This program has impacted thousands of children’s lives in the informal settlement of Katutura and beyond. A testament that proves powerful are stories such as that of Al-Ticious and many others like him. 

Al-Ticious joined the Basketball Artists School (BAS) Foundation at just 10 years old and has remained active in school sports ever since. His love for sport remained evident into his older years which can be seen in him becoming a FIBA Foundation Youth Leader, and more so, pursuing his first undergraduate degree in Sports Management. He is currently a student at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST).

When asked; He expressed how it was such an exciting feeling being able to be at an event of such magnitude and seeing the power of the game beyond the court with the many other programs he learned about and was exposed to. “I really enjoyed watching the games live and being surrounded by so many people who shared the same love for the game as I, it’s an indescribable feeling,” he said.

The Youth Leader previously represented his country at the African Youth Leadership Program hosted in Windhoek, Namibia, alongside 22 other African nations in attendance.  Consequently, as part of his itinerary, Al-Ticious attended the European Youth Leadership seminar from 12 - 16 June. Attending the tournament and the Seminar allowed Links to share a common love for the game and its impact beyond a competition sense, and he was able to polish his skills on how to better integrate his personal attributes with his career pursuits. Being with other like-minded youth leaders was a networking highlight for him. 

“My immediate goals include implementing some of the newly learned approaches from the Seminar, shaping them to fit my community. I also plan to graduate with the aim of continuing to be a pillar of representation of the power of sports in one’s life”, the Youth Leader eagerly shared.

The strong-standing partnership between the FIBA Foundation and the BAS Foundation is deeply rooted going as far back as 2017. The collaboration has been fruitful in creating Youth Leaders, capacitating coaches and volunteers, providing resources and overall community building and cohesion.

“We really appreciate every contributor, who gave directly or indirectly to the cause”. Links made it clear that all support will assist with expansion and allow greater reach to attain bigger goals easily with the resources now made available. This additional support gives us the liberty to implement our projects more firmly," he concluded. 

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The FIBA Foundation is the social and legacy arm of FIBA that addresses the role of sports and particularly basketball in society, preserving and promoting basketball’s values and its cultural heritage.

The FIBA Foundation believes that basketball has the power to empower, educate and inspire youth and facilitates this by implementing Basketball For Good projects around the world.

FIBA