19 Dec 2023
CAIRO (Egypt) – Elmau Boois, who is a Basketball For Good beneficiary, received the chance to be part of the 3x3 FIBA Africa Cup in Cairo, Egypt.
Elmau who was born and raised in the local township of Katutura in the capital city of Namibia, Windhoek is a living product of what Basketball For Good represents. He started playing our beautiful sport at the Basketball Artists School at 10 years old and that was the day his life changed forever.
Due to struggles in high school, Elmau, like many other Namibian youths, was fighting the pull of school dropout syndrome and potential unemployment. Until he fully committed himself to the Basketball Artists School (BAS) program in 2016. There, under the guidance of BAS Director, Ramah Mumba, Elmau began dabbling with graphic design. Little did he know this would become his staple.
With no formal learning, Boois was able to master the skills of graphic design, videography, and photography all from mere passion.
“When you feel like you have nothing else to lose, you tend to give yourself 100% to what you do, or at least that’s what happened to me”
Only after about a year, his commitment proved fruitful and he became the official Graphic Designer at BAS.
Through his personal development, BAS was able to give birth to a Skills Training Program that looks at empowering the players with capacity building for potential career development in their various areas of interest and innate skills.
Elmau was able to graduate his skills to the national level when he became the official graphics designer for the Namibian Basketball Federation in 2017. His big break came when he became part of the BAS marketing team for the Namibia National Olympic Committee and Commonwealth Games Association in 2021.
Warmly reminiscing Elmau pointed out; “It started with me trying to make a basketball poster and then it turned into me downloading programs and watching every YouTube video I could find to perfect the art, I never planned for it to become such a big part of my life the way it did.”
Because of his talent, the FIBA Foundation and 3x3 came together to draw up an agreement to send him off to Cairo for the FIBA 3x3 Africa Cup.
Through the project funded by the FIBA Foundation, Elmau flew to Egypt where he worked with the FIBA 3x3 media crew mentoring him during the whole event.
The long-standing partnership between BAS and the FIBA Foundation is what allowed this one-of-a-kind experience.
“I was not only given the chance to travel, I was given the chance to travel doing what I love and to develop my skills,” expressed Elmau.
In Cairo, Elmau was part of the media crew, posting about the event on the official social media page of FIBA 3x3. Also on the list of tasks was filming and doing on-court photography of the games for social media content, collecting audience reaction content, photoshoots of referees in the studio and on-court, and spreading the Basketball For Good values with the players by creating content with them during the event. His willingness was key to the best-ever coverage of a 3x3 AfricaCup.
Elmau will be telling his story from his lens. A project that glorifies the power of pictures, and their worth of a thousand words.
FIBA Foundation hopes to create more stepping stones for young talented individuals who through playing basketball, learn to manoeuvre the playing field of life as well. This looks at life beyond the sidelines and establishing themselves as recognized career men and women in the professional field as well.
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The FIBA Foundation is the social and legacy arm of FIBA that addresses the role of sports and particularly basketball in society, preserving and promoting basketball’s values and its cultural heritage.
The FIBA Foundation believes that basketball has the power to empower, educate and inspire youth and facilitates this by implementing Basketball For Good projects around the world.
FIBA
