Prahran is a unique area and unequivocally the home of streetball in Melbourne. The iconic Prahan Park court is the site for the Prahran Summer Jam, and the place to be to catch a pick-up game any day of the week. Right across the road, the Prahran public housing estate is home to hundreds of children experiencing various forms of disadvantage or challenging situations.
Helping Hoops has worked closely with Stonnington Youth Services to provide clinics for kids in this community at various events throughout the years. Through this ongoing relationship, we have formed relationships with a number of key people, and gained an understanding of the needs of the area.
Helping Hoops Prahran was an inevitability.
So, it was with excitement that we finally kicked off the very first session of the program on May 13. Around 15 children and young people came to The Hub, an adventure playground set up within the Prahran commission housing across the road from the iconic Prahran basketball court, to meet Coach Steve and get a sense of what Helping Hoops is all about. This was also the unveiling of a brand new basketball hoop which was installed in preparation for the program by our friends at Goalrilla, and we were delighted to see the immediate impact the upgrade to facilities brought to the community.
The short term goals of Helping Hoops Prahran are to establish a weekly attendance of over 20 kids, with a minimum of 25% female participation. From there, the mission shifts to establishing strong and positive relationships with all involved so that we may then be in a position to affect positive change and deliver our social outcomes of building self-esteem, providing a sense of belonging and community, aiding social cohesion, instilling discipline, developing goal setting and leadership skills, and promoting a healthy and active lifestyle.
Based on the strong turnout and positive start we enjoyed at our first session, we believe we are well on track to achieve all of the above.
Watch the video below and see how the inaugural session of Helping Hoop Prahran went down.