The FIBA Foundation and partner Tambai Zimbabwe have been selected for the Sport for Refugees Coalition Collaborative Action Grant Initiative, securing funding from the Olympic Refuge Foundation for a new project at Tongogara Refugee Settlement. The programme, called Green Hoops: Refugee-Led Climate Action through Basketball, will run weekly Basketball For Good sessions combining the sport with climate education and community action.
Green Hoops will directly engage 472 learners, youth leaders, teachers and facilitators across 14 schools and the Tongogara Basketball Club, with outreach events expected to reach approximately 2,000 community members. Drawing on the climate action chapter of the FIBA Foundation's Basketball For Good Playbook, participants will identify local environmental challenges and design their own responses, including tree planting, clean-up campaigns and waste management.
Central to the project is the principle of "Nothing About Refugees Without Refugees," with refugees helping to set priorities and leading the initiative as facilitators, mentors and decision-makers.
"We are grateful to the Olympic Refuge Foundation for supporting this initiative and excited to build on our long-standing partnership with Tambai Zimbabwe," said Theren Bullock Jr., head of the FIBA Foundation. "Through Green Hoops, young people from refugee and host communities will use basketball as a platform to lead positive change and address environmental challenges in their communities."
