Sikhs in basketball- Singh Sensations

I recently heard about an interesting initiative happening in Southern California- a basketball camp for kids, put on by an all Sikh basketball team- the Singh Sensations. [Hat tip: Simrat]

On Saturday March 13, over 100 kids from Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego gathered to participate in the first ever semi-annual Sikh basketball camp.  The camp was held at Khalsa Care Foundation and next door at Pacoima Middle School.  Registration began at 9 AM at Khalsa Care Foundation, and by 10 AM, over 100 participants ages 8-18 were stretching and preparing to run basketball drills in the Pacoima Middle School gym.

The camp offered athletic training- the kids ran drills- dribbling, passing, doing layups.

The camp was also part social training- members of the Singh Sensations discussed sportsmanship, teamwork, and how kids should behave on a court.

And finally, the camp was part mentoring on growing up as a Sikh- the Singh Sensations talked about how sports can be used as a metaphor for living as a Sikh.  They shared problems had experienced when playing sports in high school and how they had worked through those problems.

Sports are a great way of getting kids together and engaged, and then weaving in topics – like dealing with bullying in the locker room, when growing up Sikh- that might be uncomfortable to talk about otherwise.  Sounds like a great initiative!