Boost for Kenya as NBA Africa and Safaricom team up to launch Junior programme

More than 10,000 boys and girls in four cities in the country are set to benefit from basketball development and financial literacy programming, after NBA Africa and Safaricom launched the M-Pesa Junior NBA program.

This marks the league’s most expansive youth development program in East Africa to date.   

The first year of the program, which kicked off with a clinic for more than 100 local coaches at SABIS International School in Nairobi on Feb. 15, will consist of four regional tournaments for youth ages 13-16 in Nairobi (Feb. 22-23), Mombasa (March 8-9), Eldoret (March 15-16) and Kisumu (March 22-23). 

In each city, 20 boys’ and 20 girls’ teams will participate in skills development sessions and competitive games. 

The top 80 players will then be grouped into four boys’ teams and four girls’ teams that will play games in a round-robin format.

The top 16 boys and girls from each city will be selected to attend an elite top 100 camp at Aga Khan Academy in Mombasa in April.

NBA Kenya Senior Director and Country Operations Lead, Michael Finley, says coaches will be among the biggest beneficiaries of the clinic, and will be used to recruit other coaches to grow the game.

“Historically the game has always been in the secondary schools and the focus has been there, but now we are able to go into the junior schools, the 7th, 8th and 9th graders. We start with the coaches that will continue to grow the group. We’re giving them curriculum so they can learn on their own outside of this camp, and we’re going to work with them to recruit more around the country,” noted Finley.

In addition to the basketball development programming, M-PESA, Safaricom’s innovative mobile payment platform, will host financial literacy workshops for the participating youth, empowering them to develop healthy financial habits.

“Tipping off our multiyear collaboration with Safaricom is an important milestone in our ongoing efforts to make basketball more accessible to Kenyan boys and girls,” said NBA Africa CEO Clare Akamanzi. “We look forward to positively impacting youth and coaches across the country through basketball development and life-skills programming.”

“Our collaboration with NBA Africa could not have come at a more opportune moment, as Safaricom’s M-PESA will celebrate its 18th anniversary this March, marking a significant milestone in our journey,” said Safaricom CEO Dr. Peter Ndegwa.