The Ahmadiyya Muslim community extended some cheer to the Belize Central Prison today by donating backboards for their basketball rims and some basketballs.
Now the court in the Wagner's Youth Facility as well as the one in the adult area will be renovated and ready for the competitive games that the prison is planning to facilitate. According to the Kolbe CEO, sports play a big role in the lives of the inmates, and today our team went to Hattieville for the handing over ceremony. Courtney Menzies has this story.
The basketball courts at the Belize Central Prison got some much needed TLC today, courtesy of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. As a part of their project, they are donating basketball equipment to various institutions, including schools. But this is the first time they've given back to the prison - and particularly the Wagner's Youth Facility.
Naveed Mangla, President, Ahmadiyya Muslim Community
"We came here a couple months ago and we offered to Mr Murillo that we would like to work together and tell us what are different avenues that the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at or the Ahmadiyya basketball league can serve an so we looked at the board and this is something an initiative that we have been working for the last two years or so, we already sponsored two different courts and even today besides the two prison we're doing one at Grace Primary School so we thought that this would be a good way to help the inmates here, to do something positive while they spend their time here."
And according to the CEO of the Kolbe Foundation, sports is a huge help for these young men with troubled pasts.
Virgilio Murillo, CEO, Kolbe Foundation
"We're certainly ever grateful for this gesture. Like I said in my talk earlier, we've gotten donations for other things, particularly sports, football, we've always been blessed with football equipment and clothing and so forth but we've never had for basketball and I think this was a very kind gesture on the part of Mr Mangla and the Ahmadiyya group and we certainly appreciate it and I'm sure we're going to put these little boys as well as the guys from the adult population, we're going to keep them busy and keep them engaged in sports as one of those disciplines that will assist them in changing their lives altogether."
"What the sporting does, it certainly allows them to exert energies, bad energies, knock them out, so that they can go and sleep and rest and find other ways of resolving issues, conflicts and what have you."
But it doesn't end there, because Ahmadiyya has also committed to coaching the young men.
Rodvern Lino, Commissioner, Ahmadiyya Basketball league
"It is indeed very important for them to get out and play basketball because it is actually an avenue for them to express themselves or even their anger so that they don't get into mischief or something like that."
"It is very important that when you give somebody something, you teach them exactly how to use it properly. For us, we have coaches available and ready to come and train these young men to learn how to play the game properly. But also we have the coaches who will come in and give them an opportunity to play against who are not here, teams that we could bring in and have them play against."
After this donation, the Ahmadiyya team went over to Grace Primary School where, apart from the sporting equipment, they also gave them gift packages with hygiene products.
