By CBC News |
Running onto the basketball court, high-fiving fans — for a moment, a group of Milton youth are made to feel like basketball stars.
But this isn’t the NBA. Instead, it’s a volunteer-run non-profit youth sports league — about a 40-minute drive from Toronto — as a way of helping immigrant families to put their children into sport.
“We see those children who start with zero confidence coming into the league scared to touch a ball, scared to talk to people, and then by the end of the season you see a different personality,” said Imran Merchant, the centre’s executive director.
This is also the first year that the centre has an all-girls league.
The organization is also working with Hijabi Ballers, a Toronto-based group that inspired the Maple Leafs Sports League to create Nike Pro hijabs emblazoned with the Toronto Raptors’ team logo.