SportCares Award recipients rewarded by students’ progress

Basketball coach Hannah Ho (second from right) is one of the recipients of SportSG's SportCares Award’s Coaching Inspiration Award for training autistic kids. PHOTO: LIANHE ZAOBAO

SINGAPORE –After over 30 years of coaching basketball at schools and the national team, Hannah Ho was keen to explore other forms of coaching.

So she did not hesitate when the opportunity to coach children with autism in Sport Singapore’s (SportSG) philanthropic arm SportCares’ Play-Ability programme came up in 2018.

It was initially challenging for Ho, who had no prior experience training children with autism.

But with the support of her players’ parents and her own research, she tweaked her coaching programme to help her students pick up fundamental basketball skills after noticing that some were not familiar with skills such as one-handed dribbling.

To train their motor skills, she would sometimes start coaching with bean bags to let her players get familiar with the movements.

For her efforts, Ho was one of the recipients of the 2022 SportCares Awards’ Coaching Inspiration Award, which recognises coaches who have been instrumental in changing lives through sport.

Seeing her students progress has been one of the most rewarding aspects of the programme, with the 58-year-old saying: “Slowly there were a few of them who can play games without me so when I see that, I really feel like they’ve grown up.

“For me, I wanted to try something new and the parents have helped me and have been very supportive.”

The ceremony at Our Tampines Hub on Saturday also celebrated the 10-year anniversary of SportCares.

Apart from the SportCares Awards which honoured 19 individuals, the SportCares Hearts book was also launched at the dinner, which was graced by President Halimah Yacob and Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Edwin Tong.

The Hearts book is a documentation of over 20 SportCares programmes.

At the event, Madam Halimah commended the awardees and other SportCares’ community partners for their contributions.

She said: “It is through the collective effort of all that we are able to realise a common vision of serving our communities, and it is attributed to every single one of you for coming together and championing the use of sport as a force for good.”

Also receiving the Coaching Inspiration Award was Tanjong Pagar United assistant coach Herman Zailani for his involvement in the Saturday Night Lights (SNL) football programme.

Even though coaching on Saturdays takes away the time he can spend with his family, the 42-year-old is pleased to see how his players – underprivileged and at-risk youths – have grown since he came on board five years ago.

He said: “We see some of them go from rowdy boys to having more leadership qualities and now they take more initiative... I look forward to having more years with them.”

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