We were announced as winners in the Health and Wellbeing category for the mentoring work we have carried out during the coronavirus lockdown and beyond.

NASSA basketball sessions were suspended in March 2020 and were not permitted again until June when six participants at a time were allowed back on outdoor courts.

The remote mentoring work carried out by NASSA coaches and staff was vital to the mental health of over 150 vulnerable young people.

Through individual Facetime sessions and phone calls, each young person was given as much support as or she needed or wanted to talk through the issues affecting them.

NASSA also streamed live fitness classes and basketball skills sessions for the young people to join in daily.
The awards were staged remotely by the Rotary Club of Stratford which commended NASSA for “transforming their position to provide effective mental health and wellbeing to young people in response to the COVID crisis.

“The challenge of supporting people with mental health issues shows initiative and energy.

“Fear, isolation and loneliness are major issues, so to grapple with them so swiftly is commendable.

“NASSA is a well-known and well-liked organisation who do amazing things. They showed focus and awareness to support young people when so many services were struggling.”

Accepting the award, NASSA Chief Executive Natasha Hart MBE praised the work of everyone within the NASSA family during the pandemic.

She said: “It is great news and so well deserved for all the NASSA volunteers, coaches and parents who made time to help young people during this really difficult period. This is an award for everybody at NASSA.

“It has been an immense challenge for myself and all the NASSA coaches, so this award will give everyone connected with the charity a boost to know that what we are doing is being valued.

“There is so much more to do and the young people need our help more than ever at the moment.”

Our work was recognised in the Everybody Benefits — Long Term Enterprise Award category. It is the second time that NASSA has been recognised by the Directory of Social Change, having done so in 2013.

NASSA Chief Executive Natasha Hart MBE said: “It is so gratifying to know that NASSA’s work is being recognised nationally. As with every award NASSA receives, this is for our wonderful coaches and volunteers, and especially our young people.”

The academy draws young people aged 16-18 from across east London to combine their studies with specific work on the basketball court.

Sessions run by NASSA Head Coach Donnie Cabrera allow the young people to schedule between 8-12 hours of training time as court time under the auspices of the ABL (Academy Basketball League), run by Basketball England.

In addition, the NASSA Academy enjoyed an extraordinary run of success in its first ABL season, finishing 5th out of 10 teams despite the players being thrown together in September from an initial intake of just 12-15 players.

ABL games are played on Wednesday afternoons. The hastily formed NASSA team narrowly missed out on the end-of-season play-offs and aims to build on that remarkable platform in coming years.

Each basketball session is now attended by 20-25 participants with another 30 local young people on a waiting list to join the NASSA Academy.

The current participants include young people from Newham, Leyton and Redbridge, as well as Ilford, while students from the Boroughs of Lewisham and Tower Hamlets are on the list to join in coming years.

For more information how to join please contact our Head Coach Donnie Cabrera by email.

Following a tense wait after their final game of the season, a 97-68 victory over Oxford Brookes University on March 17, the All Stars have been confirmed as runners-up with 13 wins from their 18 games.

The men’s team, which is a unique partnership squad reflecting NASSA’s long-standing collaboration with UEL, also made it to the quarter-finals of the Patrons Cup earlier this season.

It has been a remarkable turn-around from a disappointing 2016-17 season in which the All Stars lost every game and were relegated from Division 2.

The success can be largely attributed to new coach Joshua Tackey, who instilled belief in place of last season’s losing mentality. In addition, he has drawn huge contributions from every player in his squad.

CABNAB was given a Highly Commended award in the Community category at a glittering ceremony at London’s Park Plaza Westminster Bridge hotel.

The accolade is due recognition for CABNAB’s role in helping to save lives in east London by educating young people on the dangers of knife crime and gang culture.

It was set up by NASSA after one of our players, Anthony Okereafor, lost two of his friends in separate knife-related incidents in 2008.

Anthony wanted to do something positive in memory of his two friends to try and ensure that similar tragedies would not affect other communities in the London Borough of Newham and beyond.

Anthony was present at the Charity Times Awards evening. He said: “It is amazing that CABNAB has been recognised in this way. The message that CABNAB gets across is a powerful one but we need to keep reaching and educating more and more young people.

“Being highly commended in these awards is great. It means we are doing something right, but we need to keep going.”

CABNAB mentoring talks are included in the school basketball sessions that NASSA lays on in schools across east London, which means that over 2,000 local schoolchildren are educated on the subject of knife crime every week.

The programme is working. Metropolitan Police figures show that no young person lost his or her life as a direct result of knife crime in the 12 months to August 2015 — down from 11 and six in the previous two years.

The 17-seater vehicle will be used to transport NASSA’s seven age group teams to away Basketball England National League fixtures. It will also be used to help support disabled young people who attend NASSA’s inclusive wheelchair basketball sessions.

With many of NASSA’s 100 club members in attendance, as well as NASSA founder and Chief Executive Natasha Hart and Head Coach Chris Facey, the presentation of the minibus was made at the University of East London’s SportsDock building. The ribbon was cut by a special invitee to the event, the Russian Ambassador to the UK, Mr Alexander Yakovenko.

Dennis Wise said the choice of NASSA as recipients of a minibus marked a departure from the Trust’s usual policy, but added that the east London welcome he and his fellow trustees Steve Frankham and Becky Bosman had received from the NASSA coaches, parents and players confirmed to them that they had made the right decision.

He said: “Everything we do is for kids, so that was an important factor. We normally donate minibuses to special needs kids and Down’s Syndrome kids, but we know that Natasha has been trying for a long, long time to help the situation at NASSA.

“As a group, we looked at it and we felt it was a good cause. Coming here today, seeing the bus and all of the kids, as well as seeing Chris the coach, who’s fantastic, you can see it’s going to be a worthy cause. We’re really pleased that we have done this today. Good luck to them all.

“It’s lovely to be part of the NASSA family now. Natasha’s invited us to come back in September for their 10-year anniversary event. If I’m around, I’d love to pop back to say ‘Hi’ and make sure that there are no dents in the bus!”

Natasha Hart added: “We cannot say thank you enough to Dennis, Steve and everyone at the Frankham Group Charitable Trust. This minibus will make a huge difference to NASSA and to all of the players’ parents who have spent so much money over the years helping us take the teams to games.

The award was presented by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, who visited a NASSA training session. Read more here.

Sir Bernard spent two hours watching the NASSA training session at Rokeby School in Canning Town, talking to coaches, parents and players as well as attending a knife crime workshop.

The Commissioner was told about NASSA’s Carry A Basketball Not A Blade (CABNAB) initiative which reaches out to 2,000 young people in 65 local schools and colleges across Newham every week. He met Anthony Okearafor (below), who set up CABNAB following the death of two of his friends from knife crime in 2008, and NASSA Head Coach Chris Facey, who was recently named as Coach of the Year in the London Awards for Sport & Physical Activity 2014.

Sir Bernard said: The Metropolitan Police award we made to NASSA is not something that we give to everybody. I’m really impressed by the project. Clearly the young people are enjoying it, keeping themselves fit and getting the sport that they can take part in. It’s very well organised. To get 2,000 young people involved in this project is fantastic. They are getting some positive messages about not getting involved in knife crime and not getting involved in the gangs, which is good.

“I’m glad to see that Newham Police are getting involved and contributing. Very clearly Coach Chris is doing a great job, while Anthony’s idea of Carry A Basketball Not A Blade is a good one. You have a lot of families who are coming along to support unpaid, giving their own time and I’m sure spending some of their own money. It’s great to see.

The highly coveted honour was announced last night at a star-studded awards evening hosted by comedian Stephen Frost at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel. Read more here.

Earlier in the evening, NASSA was chosen as winner of the Children and Youth category because of the impact that our Carry A Basketball Not A Blade (CABNAB) initiative has had on our young people and the local community in east London.

The overall Charity of the Year was then selected from the 10 category winners. For NASSA it is the highest possible praise for the work that began with an impromptu basketball coaching session in an east London park in 2005.

Charity Awards judge Sir Christopher Kelly described NASSA as “a really energetic organisation doing substantial things to help the local community.”

The Charity Awards, which celebrated its 15th year last night, is a year-round programme run by Civil Society Media in partnership with the Charities Aid Foundation.

April 7, 2014 — Newham All Star Sports Academy’s (NASSA) Under-13s basketball team have been crowned national champions for the third year in succession.

They won the 2014 England Basketball National Final Fours competition at the Worcester Arena on Saturday, beating Leicester Warriors 117-62 in the final. Read more here.

The victory marked a third consecutive triumph in that age group for NASSA captain Enoch Denkyirah who first played for the Under-13s side when he was just 10.

Led by coach Chris Facey and assistant coach Aurimas Verbukas, the NASSA team — Division South II winners during the regular season, made a quick start against Midlands winners Leicester. They raced out to a 26-17 first quarter lead before extending it to a 57-43 half-time advantage.

The two sides had never previously faced each other but it was in the third quarter that NASSA’s high-powered offense and pressing defence took the game away from their opponents with particularly strong play from MVP Emmanuel Obeng-Amponsan and Enoch Denkyirah. NASSA outscored Leicester 33-9 in the third quarter giving them an unassailable 90-52 lead entering the fourth.

They cruised to victory with Dylan Darbin, Hadrian Basilio, Elliot Quail, Teresa Da Silva and Tyreese Garrod also prominent.

Earlier in the day, NASSA’s semi-final against Bradford Dragons had begun tightly before good work from Normanas Custovas, Tautvydas Mieliauskas, Caleb Garcia, Tim Colie and Jonathan Fakile turned a slender 15-14 first quarter advantage into an eventual 94-59 victory.