A program in WA is transforming a regular basketball game to help promote health, culture and education outcomes. Started by a Perth dad, the program has seen about 5000 children take part since 2011. And a warning to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers, this story contains images of people who have died.
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00:00It's 6.30 on a wet Perth morning.
00:11Adam Desmond is starting his day at his dry cleaning business in Midland.
00:17A routine he's followed for 17 years.
00:20I enjoy coming in early, start my day this way.
00:24The early starts allow Desmond to dedicate time to his other organisation, the charity
00:29Binar, which he started and funded in 2011 to replace a basketball diversion program
00:35which was ending.
00:36After talking to some of the kids involved, he decided to register a basketball team in
00:41Kalamunda to keep them engaged.
00:43A lot of people get to just go and play sport and I thought well why can't they access sport
00:47in a way that other kids can.
00:49Desmond organised the boys, picking them up and driving them 30 minutes to games each
00:53week.
00:54He now sees those car rides as much more than just getting from A to B.
00:58The conversations change, so then it becomes what's happening in life, what's happening
01:03at school.
01:04All them sorts of things start to be, it was a trusted space.
01:08So them car rides were, I think, really important.
01:13While basketball initially drew the kids in, there were other benefits.
01:17I knew some of the struggles, like the family struggles that some of the kids had been going
01:25through, etc. as well.
01:26So it was just around opportunity for them to have something in their life that had some
01:32structure to it and something that they were enjoying.
01:35Resilience, okay.
01:36We don't quit today.
01:44What started as a single team has grown into a league of its own, with thousands of boys
01:48and girls playing over the past 13 years.
01:52They even scored an invite to the Under-18 National Championships this year.
01:58Basketball remains core to BINAR.
02:00Its chair is Boomers and Perth Wildcats legend Andrew Vlahov.
02:08But it's expanded beyond just sport.
02:10Every school holidays, BINAR holds basketball clinics in regional centres and pairs them
02:15with health education.
02:19Desmond believes basketball is a gateway to other programs.
02:22If you just said, oh, we're just starting a program and it's going to be after school,
02:29after you do your seven hours at school, we're going to keep you back for another two hours
02:33and do more schoolwork, most kids are not going to volunteer to do that.
02:39While BINAR has helped more kids than Desmond can remember, there's one he'll never forget.
02:44In 2022, 15-year-old Cassius Turvey was attacked while walking home from school, later dying
02:50from his injuries.
02:52I look at it and see some of the young people that struggled immensely through that time
02:58and some still do.
03:00Some have never recovered from that, they really haven't been able to live their normal
03:05life since his passing.
03:09No matter how much support system's around them, it's such a really hard thing to come
03:13back from.
03:14BINAR is bigger than Desmond could have imagined, earning him recognition at the 2024 Fathering
03:19Projects Award.
03:20And while he's honoured, his focus remains on growing BINAR, increasing his staff, reaching
03:25more regional communities and building a community hub that can be used by multiple organisations.
03:31We know the recipe that works and it's about trying to expand that now and to try to reach
03:38as many young people and their families as we possibly can.
03:45BINAR is BINAR.
03:46BINAR is BINAR.