Promo Juenes Basket

Promo Juenes Basket (PJB)

            So today is the third day I will be with kids training. Monday I had the teenage boys, Tuesday I had the little boys and today I will have girls of all ages. It is very interesting to see how this whole PJB system is working out. For those of you that don’t know I will use this blog post to introduce a little bit about what PJB is.

            PJB was an initiative started about 5 years ago by a man named Dario Merlo Kasuku and some of his colleagues. Their goal was to make the game of basketball available to the kids of Congo, specifically in the Eastern Province and Goma. In the town there are right now only two functional basketball courts, and very limited access to basketball equipment. When there is equipment available it is very expensive (Second hand Basketballs go for close to 50$). So PJB’s aim was to make basketball available to the children of Goma.

            Moreover though PJB was developed to teach the children of Goma the important characteristics of life that can be developed through basketball. Basketball can be used as a source of entertainment, but it is also a very powerful platform to teach children good character. PJB aims to construct a firm platform to raise the children (many of whom are street kids with not even enough money to pay their school fees) so that the children may have a hope for the future.

            Right now PJB is in somewhat of a transition period. For the first five years the program ran well, but remained consistent. Right now the coaches and board are looking forward to a future that will hopefully see PJB develop from a strictly volunteer organization into a professional organization. This would involve having an organized program that is equipped for a large number of players, and having coaches that would receive a salary allowing them to comfortably support their families. In developing PJB as a professional organization this could create job opportunities within the community and foster a growth in the sport of basketball through the Kivu province and hopefully throughout all of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

            Some things that we are looking forward to is new ventures with sponsors, the development of a strong and organized training program for the kids, and within the coming month the construction of a brand new basketball court. This new court will be great, as it will have six baskets, which will be 150% more hoops that are available in Goma. Construction of the court will hopefully begin within the next month, the problems we are facing though are where we will be able to construct the court because there are problems with the land we had and the government not wanting us to use it. After this court is constructed we will be able to prepare for the competitions in January.

            So that’s a quick overview of the program. Yesterday I tried to teach the coaches and players so fun defensive line things so below I will attach a video to see how things go.... so the video is not uploading because the internet is too slow. It may be a week or so until I can figure out how to put video on... Stay Tuned