Basketball in Africa

Windhoek — The German basketball expert to Namibia, Peter Schey, says this year's short-term project was successfully concluded at the end of last month.
About 80 coaches, future coaches and teachers participated in the clinics in towns such as Tsumeb, Oshakati and Rundu, that saw 55 participants awarded with certificates for their achievements during a two-week series of clinics in northern Namibia.
Schey was delighted about the results and especially about the rising number of female participants who formed one third to one half of the participants per clinic. In all three towns, basketball courts were renovated and altogether 100 basketballs were handed over.
Basketball rims, basketball boards, sets of jerseys, stopwatches, whistles, cones and textbooks were also part of the donation. The main focus of Schey's project was on implementing the new FIBA 3x3 game, which is particularly suited for Namibian conditions, due to its easy rules.
Schey initiated the 3x3 Northern Namibian Basketball League (NNBL) that is organized by the Kavango, Oshana and Oshikoto regions. The league will last from June to August and conclude with a championship at the Tsumeb Copper Festival.
"It was our most successful project so far. The two previous short-term projects in 2010 and 2012, as well as the long-term project finally yielded fruit," Schey summed up his most recent expedition.
"You can see that Namibian basketball is making a lot of progress and the joint efforts of the 3x3 league seem to be very promising, too. He expressed the hope that a Namibian 3x3 championship will take place next year. The short-term project is part of the Federal Foreign Office's international sports promotion and complements the long-term project already carried out by expert Frank Albin for the German Olympic Sports Confederation and the Federal Foreign Office, together with the Namibian Basketball Federation and the Namibian Ministry of Youth, National Service, Sport and Culture," he added.
The focus of the long-term project is on mini basketball at primary schools, while the focus of the short-term project is on secondary schools.