More than 120 young people took part in a basketball clinic at Werribee’s Eagle Stadium on Friday morning.
The clinic, run with support of the Ben Simmons Family Foundation, gave particpants aged 12 to 25 the opportunity to receive coaching that might one day have them following in Simmons footsteps.
“It went really well. It was very successful,” said Poly Kiyaga, program manager for Junubi Wyndham Community Support Group who organised the clinic.
While open to anyone, the majority of the young men and women who took part in the clinic were from Wyndham’s South Sudanese community.
“They see some of their colleagues who have been playing locally go and play in the United States and the Australian Institute of Sport and the NBL and that is very inspiring for them,” said Mr Kiyaga of why basketball has become so popular with young South Sudanese.
Mr Kiyagi thanked Wyndham council for providing Junubi an empowering communities grant to help make the clinic possible and said a soccer clinic was being planned for the coming months.
