Belize’s National Youth-15 Basketball Team has new gear

The Belize National Youth-15- Basketball Team has new gear thanks to the Minister of Home Affairs and New Growth Industries, Kareem Musa. Today, Musa handed over fifteen new pairs of basketball tennis shoes to the Belize Basketball Federation. The shoes were donated to Musa by Alex Lavin the consultant of New Growth Industries. According to Musa, the initiative was sparked by the need to provide greater support to the youth in areas such as sports.

Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs and New Growth Industries: “I met with the president of the Belize Basketball Federation a few months ago if you would recall when Reggie Bullock the player from the Dallas Mavericks came and he did an exhibition and he engaged with our young people I mentioned then the importance of investing in our youth. You could never go wrong with an investment in young people whether it’s in education or in sports and he requested back then a donation from us in terms of tennis shoes. Right away I immediately activated my different networks to try to see how we could get a donation as I’ve said before the Ministry of New Growth Industries doesn’t necessarily have a budget to assist with those things but we do have a lot of partners and a lot of networking that we can tap into and so we were able to get – he gave us the shoe sizes, twenty four pairs of tennis shoes and we were able to get a donation from Sir Alex Lavin the consultant for New Growth Industries and he donated the tennis shoes.”

President of the Belize Basketball Federation, Jacob Leslie, explained that the donation was months in the making. He says that the players will now be able to compete in style.

Jacob Leslie, President, Belize Basketball Federation: “It’s always a good thing when we can gift our young people anything. A part of our mandate is to make sure that we use the sport of basketball to change the lives of our young people and many times when they compete they look like second class citizens and so that impacts their play. So with these sneakers and I think we’re trying to do is to let them look good so that they can play good and feel good about themselves.”

Reporter: They already know this is coming ? 

Jacob Leslie, President, Belize Basketball Federation: “No they don’t actually. I’m sure when they see it on tv my phone will be ringing a lot but yeah it’s a surprise to them, it’s something that I know the Minister has been working on for some time. I didn’t want to say anything until it materialized and so that now that it has materialized I’m sure they’ll be excited. These are very important. Most people know it’s Attentecump it’s an NVP of last season they’re very high level basketball shoes nothing that these guys might be able to afford themselves so when they’re gifted to us we are very appreciative of it.”