{"id":589200,"date":"2026-04-06T13:45:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T13:45:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/589200\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T13:45:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T13:45:23","slug":"former-toronto-raptors-president-masai-ujiri-is-building-basketball-courts-for-peace-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/589200\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Toronto Raptors President Masai Ujiri is building basketball courts for peace in Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"NA\"Former Toronto Raptors President Masai Ujiri has launched “Dribble for Peace,” his latest initiative to build basketball courts in the war-torn countries of Africa. Giants of Africa <\/p>\n

This Giant of Africa is basically a shrimp at 6-foot-5. Walk with him, walk with Masai Ujiri in the crumbling village of Koulikoro in southwestern Mali or in impoverished Agona Nsaba in Central Ghana, and he is the point guard standing among all the Manute Bols.<\/p>\n

Walk with him there, and you\u2019ll see all the angular wannabes or should-bes. The 7-foot-7 Manute Bol \u2014 the only player in NBA history to amass more blocks than points \u2014 was once a nobody himself. His great-grandfather, a Twic Dinka chief, was 7-foot-10, and his mother Okwok measured 6-foot-10. And if he\u2019d never stumbled upon a basketball court, he\u2019d have been cow herder like they wanted. <\/p>\n

But he did somehow find a court, losing two teeth when he dunked and got his jaw tangled in the net. The rest is history. <\/p>\n

Walk with Ujiri, and there\u2019s always more Manutes, but not always more courts. So the former Toronto Raptors president builds them through his nonprofit organization Giants of Africa, which he founded and funded with help from Shopify entrepreneur and Hello Ventures CEO Scott Lake and Lake\u2019s wife, Jess \u2014 along with the Kensington travel-tour company. He built 44 of them across 13 countries, under the initiative \u201cBuilt Within.\u201d But now Ujiri is doing his most dirty and philanthropic work of all: building them in places of war.<\/p>\n

He calls this latest phase \u201cDribble for Peace.\u201d The goal is to build 100 courts or more \u2014 \u201cso kids have a safe place to play.\u201d Walk with him there, and the climate change causes heat stroke and famine, while the violence causes stress and crossfire. But, with additional funding from Qatari-owned Forta Advisors, the 45th and 46th courts were built this March in Africa\u2019s Sahel region, where the newest Manute Bols in Mali and Ghana bow down to Ujiri \u2026 and try to keep their teeth out of the nets.<\/p>\n

\"NA\"Masai Ujiri, through his initiative “Dribble for Peace,” cuts the ribbon on a new court in the Sahel region of Africa. Giants of Africa <\/p>\n

Walk with Ujiri in Mali and see what he saw: a man in his mid-40s, with dreadlocks, excavating dirt with his bare hands, clearing garbage, prepping the land for the construction. \u201cYou can tell he\u2019s just putting his blood and sweat into this basketball court,\u201d says Ujiri, a native Nigerian who also serves as a United Nations Sustainable Development Goals advocate. \u201cAnd you could tell how fulfilled he was that we have come and built this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hear what Ujiri hears, that this man is a \u201ccrazy rebounder\u201d who goes by the nickname: Ben Wallace. But there are much younger wannabes and should-bes out there, like the pair of 15-year-old girls who towered over him this March at a Mali coaching clinic. Stand there with him \u2014 alongside these two 6-foot-7 girls and the 6-8 Giants of Africa co-founder and former Georgetown forward Godwin Owinje \u2014 and it validates all of Ujiri\u2019s humanitarian work over the last quarter-century. It validates this latest project even more, this Dribble for Peace initiative, and the pixie dust that happens when a basketball court supersedes war.<\/p>\n

\"NA\"Giants of Africa founder Masai Ujiri in Mali with a pair of 6-foot-7 15-year-old prospects, and Giants of Africa co-founder Godwin Owinje. Giants of Africa <\/p>\n

Ujiri may not have told those girls last month, but he has since bought into the WNBA\u2019s expansion Toronto Tempo \u2014 so now, maybe someday, he can bring them to North America for more than just a court. For maybe a tryout.<\/p>\n

Walk with him in Africa \u2014 along with the Nike shoes and Nike gear he carries in and gives away \u2014 and you never know. New courts are about to be unveiled, through Dribble for Peace, in Burkina Faso, Nigeria and Senegal, eventually expanding into Cameroon, Chad, Gambia, Guinea, Mauritania, Niger and even Manute Bol\u2019s South Sudan. Walk with him, and Ujiri will tell you what it\u2019s all about:<\/p>\n

\u201cBuild more giants.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Toronto Raptors President Masai Ujiri has launched “Dribble for Peace,” his latest initiative to build basketball courts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,198283,48702,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-589200","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-closing-shot","12":"tag-print","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}