Program Description:

Since 2012, Shooting Touch has provided the infrastructure, equipment, and capacity to grow the game of basketball across Rwanda's villageside, inspiring a new generation with a love for, and understanding of, the positive power of sport for an entire country.

In rural Rwanda, where poverty is ubiquitous and overpopulation, limited resources, and various forms of health inequity negatively impact communities at large, Shooting Touch is using the mobilizing power of basketball as "more than a game."

Turning basketball courts into classrooms, community centers, and health clinics, Shooting Touch is providing roughly 3,000 youth and women with essential health education, resources, and support integral to their personal development and well-being.

Shooting Touch takes an intentional approach to program implementation, working through the community to create impactful and sustainable programs relevant to the identified needs. Using a holistic, mental and physical health model, Shooting Touch not only provides daily sport and educational programming, but organizes community health events, health advocacy campaigns, and supplies all families in our program with annual health insurance and health testing.

Lastly, in response to the deeply rooted patriarchal systems existing in rural Rwanda, Shooting Touch operates through a gender lens, ensuring not just equal opportunity on the basketball courts, but in all aspects of life. Gender inequality results in unhealthy individuals, families, and communities. As a women-led organization with an equal male to female coach ratio and 70% female beneficiary rate, Shooting Touch is helping to reshape the negative structures holding women and girls back from equal rights and reaching their highest potentials.

PROGRAM GOAL:

The primary goal of Shooting Touch Rwanda is to put youth and women on track towards a brighter future by marrying the values and skills learned on the court with lessons and experiences that target improved health, citizenry, and empowerment.

How We Do This:

Shooting Touch Rwanda fulfills the mission to use basketball to educate and inspire youth, women and their families through various programs aligning with our 3 objectives: