The IronDog Chronicles

For all of the shots at the integrity of basketball over the past couple of years, here’s to someone and a sports program that is making a difference…

One of my all-time favorite people in basketball, JD Walsh, who has been running basketball schools out of New York City for the past decade, partnered with Chinar.org and won a Nike Ashoka Changemaker grant for his work in Kashmir.
Walsh has been working over the past decade to utilize basketball as a way to stop violence in war-torn regions around the world such as Palestine, Israel, Ireland, and India.  His latest project teamed up his international traveling basketball school with Chinar.org to focus upon creative ways to heal youth from the trauma caused by violence.

The Chinar/Walsh Project steers toward bringing youth from orphanages and local schools to Kashmir for basketball skills development programs.  The purpose is to create community integration and to get Indian and Kashmiran youth involved in youth basketball.  The cool thing about Walsh’s project is that he is partnered with Chinar, which is an incredible organization working with orphaned children in Kashmir.

To give you a little more awareness around the Nike-Ashoka Changemaker Program, the program is designed global search for innovations that are using sport to create social change. The grant program has created a panel that includes judges such as Chicago Bulls Forward, Luol Deng, Nike President and CEO, Mark Parker, Joan Laporta, President of F.C. Barcelona, Ann Veneman, Executive Director of UNICEF.

So far, the Changemaker program has been providing $5,000 grants to numerous  programs ranging from promote AIDS awareness in grassroots soccer programs in Africa, to programs that create conflict resolution for low-income youth in the U.S., to developing sports promotion promotional programs for youth by utilizing SMS technology in Brazil.

This blogga is looking forward to the work in Kashmir.  The JD Walsh Basketball School has been a hit over the past decade in New York City.  Check out more about his work here.  It’s good to see that he’s developing change worldwide.

Keep shining big man…Keep shining!

Pushing Upcourt,

BD