DAKAR (Senegal) - Born in Senegal to basketball-playing parents, Ndour moved to Spain, representing its youth and senior national teams at multiple World Cups and Olympic Games, along with playing numerous seasons in FIBA's EuroLeague and EuroCup. Six seasons in the WNBA followed for the 198 cm center, culminating in the 2021 WNBA title with the Chicago Sky. 

But rather than having her success serve as a binding template, the 27-year-old Ndour aims to make basketball more accessible to youth.

In December 2019, Ndour launched the 'Astou Ndour Association AN45' to help kids balance their basketball, academic and health interests.

Giving back through Astou Ndour Association

"I always said in my head that I had to help children. So that's what I do now every time I go back home (Senegal) because at their age I was not in a comfortable situation. It was very difficult and even more so for a girl. To train, I didn't have any facilities," Ndour tells the FIBA Foundation.

The Association successfully conducted its first event, a three-day basketball camp, between July 28 to 31 in Senegal's capital city of Dakar. Players and coaches were divided into groups according to their level with an emphasis on "the transmission of know-how and the notion of respect."

Bringing Basketball to Girls

The highlight of the camp was that out of its 60 participants, 35 were girls. Ndour confirms that helping girls discover basketball is one of her key objectives.

“Here [in Senegal] when a girl plays sport there is a tendency to be told that sport is for boys and the same for studies. You have to stay at home, cook and be a housewife. That's the past and we want to show that basketball can change a girl's life. It's going to give them more power, more responsibility so that they can be role models for the next generation,” says Ndour.

 The FIBA Foundation supplied Molten mini basketballs for the camp, which Ndour says, made the campers "very happy" as "they don't have mini basketballs [and] the little girls have to learn with size 6 balls" and regular sized hoops.

Championing Inclusivity

It is not just girls who benefited from the camp’s emphasis on inclusivity, as even wheelchair basketball players participated.

"Unfortunately, wheelchair players are never invited to camps or nobody follows their championship even though they are professionals. So I also wanted to show that they are one of us," Ndour says.

"In terms of facilities, there are never dedicated spaces or passages for them. We even had to lift them up to get to certain places and that's not normal. Nobody thinks about that and I have kept in touch with the players to possibly work with them in the future. In conclusion, they were all satisfied and just being able to participate in our camp made them happy."

Fundraiser Planned

Currently, the Association operates solely through Ndour's personal resources. Her team is now looking to raise funds by organizing concerts, fairs and gala dinners. Ndour also plans to launch an academy for boys and girls that focuses equally on grassroots basketball training and classroom work.

“Basketball can change everything, basketball can change a person's life as it did for me. But I want to make it clear that you can't succeed in life by just playing basketball, there's education that comes with it,” Ndour concludes.

Besides her ambitious plans in Senegal, Ndour is also a member of the newly created FIBA Safeguarding Council, tasked with protecting vulnerable groups of basketball participants.

On-court accomplishments notwithstanding, Astou Ndour's real work seems to be only just beginning.

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