NBA Africa and the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) have trained 100 Kenyan Physical Education teachers and educators to make basketball more accessible to children with disabilities.
The training took place on Saturday, October 17, 2026, at Fam Sports Arena basketball court in Kitengela, Kajiado County, during the Basketball Experience Disability Inclusion (BE-DI) Teachers’ Awareness Day.
The full-day workshop combined classroom instruction with practical court sessions to equip educators with skills they can use to teach basketball to children with different abilities.
Participants learnt basketball fundamentals through the Jr. NBA/Jr. WNBA curriculum, alongside safe coaching practices, age-appropriate instruction and methods for adapting activities to accommodate children with disabilities.
The initiative forms part of the wider Basketball Experience programme, which uses sport to promote education, life skills and inclusive opportunities for young people.
Kita Matungulu, NBA Africa’s Director of Basketball Operations, said the training would help teachers take basketball coaching skills back to their schools and communities.
“This training is so important because it provides capacity to the coaches the understanding is for them to carry these skills and go back to their own communities and schools and teach it,” Matungulu told Buzz Central.
He said the programme seeks to expand basketball development beyond specialist coaches by enabling educators to introduce the game to more learners.
“We want to have that cascading effect. That’s where it’s not just the leading and top coaches coaching basketball. The entire community and schools can experience the growth of basketball through the teachers. It provides a larger legacy for the program,” he added.
The approach places teachers at the centre of grassroots development. Rather than depending solely on professional coaches to introduce basketball, participating educators can use their training to organise activities and encourage young people to take up the sport.
Matungulu also pointed to infrastructure and coaching capacity as challenges facing basketball development across Africa.
“The main challenge we are facing across the continent remains infrastructure. The lack of infrastructure is a challenge, and without it we can’t advance in the way we want to advance,” he said.
He added that the sport needs more coaches who can help young players develop their abilities and progress to higher levels of competition.
The BE-DI training focused on reducing barriers that prevent children with disabilities from participating in organised sport.
Through adaptive coaching techniques, accessible activities and inclusive curriculum design, the programme aims to help educators accommodate different learning needs and create opportunities for children to play together.
The disability-inclusion component covers children with hearing, visual and physical impairments. It builds on the programme’s broader goal of using basketball to develop confidence, teamwork, discipline and leadership.
Matungulu said the initiative seeks to make inclusion part of every level of basketball, from grassroots participation to elite competition.
“The idea really is to create activities that are equal. You see today that people with disability are here, but you also see that women are here. So our idea is to ensure that at every level whether it’s coaching or competing, we want to see them at that level,” he said.
The Kenya Red Cross also contributed to the training through a life-skills component. The sessions highlighted how sport can help children develop teamwork, resilience, leadership, health awareness and social responsibility.
By combining basketball instruction with these lessons, the programme seeks to support children’s development both on and off the court.
The teachers’ training builds on the wider Basketball Experience programme, which has reached 103,340 children across 128 schools in Nairobi, Machakos, Kiambu and Kajiado counties.
AFD funds the programme in collaboration with NBA Africa, while Expertise France implements it in partnership with the Ministry of Education and the Kenya Red Cross.
The initiative launched in Kenya in July 2024 across 48 schools. Its subsequent expansion brought additional schools into the programme and introduced a dedicated disability-inclusion component.
In March 2026, the partners launched the disability-inclusion strand at Isinya School for the Deaf. The initiative targets 32 specialised schools for children with disabilities across Nairobi, Kajiado, Machakos and Kiambu counties.
The programme uses the Jr. NBA curriculum to support basketball instruction and locally developed inclusive materials to teach life skills to children aged eight to 18.
The expansion seeks to extend organised sporting opportunities to learners who may face barriers to participating in conventional school sports.
The October training is expected to strengthen the programme’s long-term reach by equipping educators to lead basketball activities in their own schools and communities.
“In the same token, they have an opportunity to play at the highest level. We want to make sure that broadening the base at grassroots means there will be a strong agreement to continue to have participation at the highest level with disability, and that’s what we build into,” Matungulu said.
