We are still NASSA and always will be, but the change of name better reflects our work in a number of London Boroughs and our influence on mentoring, crime reduction and community activities across the capital.
The celebration event included speeches by NASSA Founder and Chief Executive Natasha Hart MBE, NASSA Patron Rt Hon Sir Stephen Timms, MP for East Ham and Unmesh Desai, London Assembly Member for City and East.
The assembled guests, who included prominent business leaders as well as NASSA’s community partners, heard from NASSA participants past and present about the change that NASSA has allowed them to make in their own lives.
The attendees were also treated to an old-fashioned music hall show at the venue, which has been transformed from the church it once was.
Natasha Hart said:
NEWHAM All Star Sports Academy is heartbroken to learn of the death of four young basketball players from the Essex Rebels basketball club after they tragically lost their lives in a car crash on Saturday morning.
The basketball community is one of strength and unity and NASSA stands with Essex Rebels in honouring the lives of Makyle Bayley, Eva Darold-Tchikaya, Anthony Hibbert and Daljang Wol. Everyone at NASSA is thinking of their families and friends, as well as the Essex Rebels club and community at this truly sad time.
We are here for you.
Among the individual winners were:
The NASSA Partnership of the Year went to London Sport Academy, while NASSA also recognised longstanding local partners Tate & Lyle Sugars, London ExCeL, London City Airport and the Mercers Company with special NASSA Inspirational Partner Awards
Special NASSA Gold Awards were presented to Sir Stephen Timms and Jeremy Rees, Chief Executive of London ExCeL.
NASSA Founder and Chief Executive Natasha Hart MBE said:
The NASSA v Met Police game was held in front of over 100 invited guests. It was preceded by a minute’s silence and the shooting of basketball hoops to remember each of the young people who have died in the London Borough of Newham as a direct result of knife crime in the past two years.
Together, NASSA and the Metropolitan Police have educated over 100,000 young people across east London on the dangers of knife crime and gang activity through NASSA’s award-winning Carry A Basketball Not A Blade (CABNAB) initiative.
Newham Borough Commander Simon Crick led a team of serving officers against a team of NASSA young people, all of whose lives have been affected by knife crime and all of whom have been guided by CABNAB talks.
The NASSA team was led by Anthony Okereafor, who established CABNAB through NASSA after two of his closest friends died in stabbing incidents within weeks of each other in 2008.
While the NASSA team ran out 77-22 winners, the scoreline was secondary to the spirit of friendship and respect shown by both teams.
We were named as winner in the Civic & Community Engagement category at the Newham Business Awards 2023 for our work in supporting young people and for helping them to gain qualifications to set them on the path to employment.
The Civic & Community Engagement category was open to businesses, voluntary and community organisations who were measured on their social impact.
The awards, which are run by the Rotary Club Stratford, are in their fifth year. They honour individuals and organisations for their extraordinary contributions to the east London community.
NASSA was chosen to receive its award for its unique ethos in combining basketball skills training, mentoring young people to support them with their mental health and educating them on the dangers of knife crime, county lines activity and gang memberships through our Carry A Basketball Not A Blade (CABNAB) initiative.
The judging panel praised NASSA and its Chief Executive Natasha Hart MBE with this statement:
The awards ceremony was attended by many local dignitaries, including Rokhsana Fiaz, Mayor of Newham and Rt Hon Sir Stephen Timms, MP for East Ham.
Collecting the award on behalf of NASSA, Natasha Hart said:
CABNAB Founder Anthony Okereafor
The ‘Carry A Basketball Not A Blade 15th Anniversary — The Next 100,000’ event showcased talks from some of the young people who have been educated by NASSA on the dangers of knife crime, county lines activity and gang culture since CABNAB was set up in 2008.
The initiative was established by NASSA player Anthony Okereafor after two of his friends were stabbed to death in east London parks within weeks of each other.
Anthony had been playing basketball with NASSA when each incident occurred and realised it could have been him.
CABNAB talks and workshops were developed in partnership with the Metropolitan Police and are now delivered in all NASSA’s club and schools programmes, passing the 100,000 attendances milestone this year.
The need for them was reinforced by Anthony in an impassioned speech about the realities that knife crime continues to present in east London.
The City Hall event was attended by local dignitaries, including NASSA Patron Rt Hon Sir Stephen Timms, MP for East Ham, and Jeremy Rees, CEO of ExCeL London.
Members of the east London business community, included several from Canary Wharf, heard speeches from Sir Stephen, London Assembly Committee Member Unmesh Desai, and Darwin Bernardo of the Mayor of London’s Violence Reduction Unit.
NASSA Patron Rt Hon Sir Stephen Timms, MP for East Ham
Former NASSA players Calvin Kintu, Sahara Wilson, Sidney Ekio, Naomi Hart and Ilyas Dar all made speeches acknowledging the role that NASSA played in their development as players, citizens and role models for others.
Jennifer Lauren-Smart, whose son Myles was a NASSA participant for 10 years, also made a heartfelt speech about the force for good that NASSA represents in east London.
Former NASSA player Sahara-Wilson
NASSA volunteer and parent Jennifer Lauren-Smart
Former NASSA player Calvin Kintu
In recognition of his work fighting knife crime and the impact it has made on the lives of young people across east London for the past 14 years, Anthony was invited to carry the Baton on one of the most prestigious legs of its journey around the UK.
The Queen’s Baton Relay is helping to celebrate the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games. Anthony carried it across the Thames on Saturday, June 4 aboard a Metropolitan Police boat.
Picking up the Baton at London Eye before boarding the Police boat, he was joined by members of the Metropolitan Police, passing in front of the Houses of Parliament and travelling across the Thames to Blackfriars Pier.
Anthony said: “It was a huge honour to carry the Queen’s Baton and very humbling, too. I felt I was holding it aloft for all those young people who have lost their lives as a result of knife crime in the past 14 years since we founded CABNAB.”
Anthony founded NASSA’s Carry A Basketball Not A Blade (CABNAB) initiative which educates young people about the dangers of knife crime, county lines and gang activity. CABNAB now educates over 2,000 local schoolchildren every year on the dangers of knife crime in partnership with the Metropolitan Police.
As a finalist in two different awards competitions, NASSA will gain local and national recognition for its role in helping to change the lives of young people in east London.
The work of our Carry A Basketball Not A Blade (CABNAB) initiative to educate young people on the dangers of knife crime, county lines activity and gang membership will also feature at the premiere of a new documentary.
Above all of that, former NASSA player Teddy Okereafor will make history as the player to have made more consecutive appearances for the Great Britain men’s basketball team when he steps out on court to represent his country in Newcastle.
The 29-year-old will complete a remarkable 16-year journey from Balaam Park in Plaistow to play his 50th consecutive game for Team GB in a World Cup qualifier against Greece.
That day in Balaam Park in 2005 saw the first-ever NASSA session when NASSA founder Natasha Hart took her two sons for an impromptu basketball lesson.
NASSA was founded the following year and as the charity grew, so did Teddy, eventually heading to the USA to embark on a college basketball career and then a professional career that has taken in stops in Latvia, Greece, Italy and now back in the UK with Cheshire Phoenix.
Teddy equalled the consecutive game record of Bill McInnes, who played in his 49th consecutive game for GB in 1976, when he faced France in February.
He will make it 50 in a row in Newcastle and has played in every GB game since his debut against New Zealand in 2015.
When Teddy is not playing basketball, he is helping to coach and mentor NASSA young people at every opportunity, serving as an inspiration and a guide to them.
Some of the current NASSA generation are featured in a new ‘Ignite Your Potential’ documentary which has been made to celebrate the work and impact of the Mayor of London’s Young Londoners Fund in tackling knife crime in the capital.
The documentary, to which two groups of NASSA young people contributed in filming, editing and marketing, will be premiered at the Rich Mix cinema in Shoreditch on Thursday evening.
Around the same time, NASSA’s work in supporting and mentoring young people in east London through the Covid-19 pandemic will be celebrated in the Children & Young People Now Awards 2021. NASSA is a finalist in the Mental Health and Wellbeing category.
Meanwhile, Chief Executive Natasha Hart is a finalist in the Community Hero of the Year category at the East London Community Heroes awards, another wonderful piece of recognition.
“This is such an honour to see NASSA’s name on a DLR train. I couldn’t be more proud,” said NASSA Founder and Chief Executive Natasha Hart MBE.
“Many of the young people NASSA supports have troubled home lives. Because of Covid, they couldn’t attend their regular NASSA sessions and many of them lost focus, the motivation to do schoolwork or to look after their personal hygiene and ambition for the future.
“Most tragically of all, in the first wave of the virus, six NASSA participants lost a parent to Covid-19. Five of the parents were in their 40s, the other was in his 50s. All were from the BAME community.
“These deaths impacted not only on teenagers who, without warning, suddenly had to contemplate life without one of their parents, but also on their friends and fellow NASSA participants.
“The young people asked for help with their mental health. The coaches mentored them on an individual basis either via Facetime or a phone call. Each young person was given as much time as he or she wanted. Some spoke to a coach every day for as much as an hour. Others, a few times per week for 10 or 20 minutes.
“Each NASSA coach was spending 20-30 hours of their week mentoring young people remotely. They weren’t getting paid for it because with basketball sessions stopped, much of NASSA’s income was suspended, yet they carried on talking to the young people anyway because they knew how much they were needed.”
No subject was off limits in the confidential conversations — boredom, anger, hopelessness, drugs, alcohol, smoking, gang activity, even suicide. The work was carried out with the aid of funding from a number of sources including the People’s Postcode Lottery through its Postcode Neighbourhood Trust.
Natasha Hart added: “We are so grateful to organisations like the People’s Postcode Lottery for investing in NASSA’s commitment to local young people. It is impossible to overstate the positive impact this impact has made, not just for now but for the long term.”
The NASSA mentoring team consisted of NASSA coaches and staff members, Great Britain international and former NASSA player Teddy Okereafor and even four NASSA participants who began mentoring their friends.
The full team recognised in the Covid Heroes Awards is comprised of:
As well as offering mental health support, the NASSA mentors spent their time sourcing free short Open University learning courses to encourage extra learning within the young people.
