News from Berlin

Berlin Basketball Wheelchair Club Using Sport as a Tool to Promote Peace and Development

April 04th, 2014
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News from Berlin - From March 20th until April 1st 2014, the Alba Rollis Club - Berlin’s professional basketball wheelchair club – took part in the 9th Youth Leadership Program organized by the United Nations Office on Sport for Development and Peace and the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development.

The Youth Leadership Program gives the opportunity to the Alba Rollis Club to teach young people from ages 18 to 25 coming from Africa (Gambia, Congo, Rwanda…) to learn how to play basketball in a wheelchair. The main goal of this initiative was to encourage the young participants to promote wheelchair sports in their home countries in order to bring development and to improve life conditions of handicapped people.

Indeed, according to the United Nations Office on Sport for Development and Peace, “aid should be brought not only through food donations or education programs, but also through sport”. Sport brings people together and can be a powerful tool for social integration.

In Africa, as well as in other developing countries handicapped persons have to suffer under important socioeconomic inequalities. According to the World Bank, one in five people living under the poverty line is handicapped. Promoting wheelchair sports in Africa could be an effective initiative to integrate handicapped people in society.

News from Berlin - Berlin Global