Six teams from three geopolitical zones of Nigeria are battling for N1 million prize money at the Women’s Elite Sports Empowerment Initiative (WESIE) 2022 National Basketball Championship in Abuja.
Speaking with Tribune Sports about the event, the founder, WESIE, Funke Eno Adeniji, said the objective of her organisation was to create change within communities through WESIE’s motto which is to inspire, empower and enable. She added that the organisation through this has been able to inspire and empower coaches and players to become better ambassadors of their communities.
She said the six teams participating in the championship who are champions from their zones were drawn from the North, South West and the South South.
“It’s been a long journey. For this particular event this year, what we’ve done was to reach out and we had three regional tournaments. In the South West, we had about six teams and similar number across the country. We also had a competition in Kaduna for people in the North and also the South South and the winners of those competitions progressed to the grand final which is the competition that is being held today. So it is six teams from three different zones.”
“We’ve been doing this for 10 years and we use our platform to inspire coaches and players empower and enable them to become better players, better coaches, better ambassadors of their communities. The prize money is N1 million to be split into three. The winners will get N500,000, second-placed team N300,000 and the third will get N200,000. We’ve had players that have progressed from here to some of the top leagues across the world and the national team in Nigeria and we are very passionate about that. What makes this programme different from others is the fact that we are very focused in creating local opportunities for local talents and we know that for progress to happen it has to be at the community which is also why we work and mentor coaches as well as players.”
Adeniji, a former basketball player in the United Kingdom, however seeks for support and collaboration from well-to-do individuals and corporate organisations to train the players to reach their career goals.
The General Sports Administrator WESIE, Frank John, said they have been able to use basketball to create positive change in the youths and have also mentored more than 1,000 students.
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