One Team partners with Boštjan Boki Nachbar s Life is Basketball foundation for special event. This week will be a very special one for Boštjan Nachbar and his Life is Basketball foundation. The FCBbasket forward has always been known to dedicate his time and energy for charity. He has volunteered at One Team projects and created his own foundation, Life is Basketball, in his native Slovenia. This week in Barcelona, those two projects came together in a special event on Thursday Nachbar welcomed athletes and social workers from Life is Basketball to Barcelona for three days of learning, experiences and finally, attending a Turkish Airlines Euroleague game at the famed Palau Blaugrana. Nachbar is the project leader for Life is Basketball, a position that sees him work together with program director Maja Velikajne. They work hand in hand with elementary schools, technology centers and occupational activity centers in the Slovenian cities Kranj and Koper to encourage mentally challenged people by using basketball to assist in their integration into society. We started this project five years ago. its a part of my basketball camp that I do in the summer. One part is for kids that go to school, and another part is for kids and people with special needs. This was an opportunity to cooperate with FC Barcelona and the Euroleague to bring the group here from Slovenia,” Nachbar said. “For me personally and for them its a very big thing. A lot of them travelled on a plane for the first time to be here. It was a great experience for them; that was the first thing they told me. And of course playing basketball here with their friends in Barcelona its a unique experience, so I am very thankful to all the people who helped us achieve this. One Team is Euroleague Basketball’s community programme that uses basketball as a tool to integrate communities and improve the lives of people living at risk of exclusion. Thirty-one professional clubs across Europe have been trained to create or assist programs that address the most prevalent social issues in their communities. Topics currently being addressed include physical and intellectual disabilities, gender inequality, community cohesion and substance abuse. The FC Barcelona Foundation is the entity through which FC Barcelona conveys its corporate social responsibility. Since 2009, it has been working on programs with Special Olympics Catalonia. Last season the foundation joined One Team to continue working on the goal of integrating communities through the power of basketball. The Life is Basketball athletes and social workers arrived in Barcelona on Wednesday with a busy few days planned for them. Thursday they were the special guests at a One Team practice session with participants from Special Olympics Catalonia. Nachbar was on hand to join the session together with Alex Abrines, his Barcelona teammate and One Team Ambassador. The session include a question-and-answer period and photo opportunities so the participants could get to know their heroes. “I think that this kind of initiatives are really helpful for these kids. They support us from home, they watch us on TV and I think It’s good for them to spend some time with us, players from a club like FC Barcelona, and do some sport together,” Abrines said at the event. “I’ve participated several times in these One Team sessions and it’s fun and nice for me. At the end of these activities, you leave with a comfortable feeling and with the confidence of having made their dreams come true. We are a reference for them and we learn how to behave in a proper way and be an example for them.”
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 12:38:46 +0000
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