454 Kuya Prince’s Basketball Clinic with Pangarap Foundation

Written by Core Team Leader, Mikel Jacinto
On February 19, 2015 (which just so happened to be the first day of Chinese New Year), U! Happy was excited to celebrate the birthday of rising UAAP player Prince Rivero from the DLSU Green Archers. Alongside his family members and a few friends, he spent the morning of his first day as a 20 year old with the boys of Pangarap Foundation, located along Taft Avenue near Libertad Market.
Pangarap Foundation, an all-boys shelter for former street children, addresses the mental development, physiological, emotional, psycho-social and spiritual needs of its clientele. It provides three major intervention services for them: Caring Services (shelter, food, clothing, advocacy, legal, medical and dental); Healing Services (social, psychological, psychiatric and spiritual); and Teaching Services (formal and non-formal education). Pangarap Foundation also has an outreach community area in Paliparan, Dasmariñas, Cavite.
40 boys, ages ranging from 12 to 18, joined us that day for a basketball clinic with the volunteers. They were separated into four groups, and each of them were assigned a “coach” for the day. Group 1 had the youngest of the family, Ricci Rivero, who is a player for the La Salle Greenhills basketball team take the lead. Group 2’s coach was the celebrant and DLSU player, Prince Rivero. Group 3 was the head of their family, Paolo Rivero who is a strength and conditioning coach for various professional, collegiate and secondary school men’s basketball teams. Group 4’s leader was Rasheed Rivero, who is a player for DLSU-CSB.
The day started off with the usual getting to know each other activity, with us asking the kids to share their names, favourite colors and favourite basketball players. As a way to break the ice, we called upon the kids who answered Derrick Rose and Stephen Curry as their favourite players to come up in front and dance for everyone. They put on quite a show, lead by one of their best dancers who was named Emman.
Before starting with the more strenuous activities, the boys and volunteers engaged in a warm-up that included a lot of dynamic stretching, led by the (self-titled) “Lolo” Paolo. Everyone went through basic stretches to do before beginning to play basketball and the proper form to prevent injury was also taught to them.
After this, they ran through simple drills to hone different aspects of their game. First they began with dribbling, with their different coaches showing them how to dribble properly, reminding them to stay low and protect the ball. They practice dribbling with both their left and right hands, then dribbled with two balls at the same time. With that done, the teams moved on to practicing their passes to each other with the note that they should remember to use proper passing technique. The boys went through chest passes, bounce passes and overhead passes while doing laterals.
In the middle of the activities, the weather took a slight turn for the worst and it started drizzling over the open basketball court. The activities were put on hold for a bit and everyone proceeded into the shade. Everyone was wondering whether or not the games should continue, but thankfully the rain suddenly stopped. So we were able to step back into the court and finish up the activities.
For the final portion of the basketball clinic, there was a mini-tournament between the teams. We began with the eliminations. The first game was Group 1 vs. Group 2, then Group 3 vs. Group 4. The teams played first to ten points, with the winner moving on to the championship round. For the finals, it was Group 2 vs. Group 3. Unfortunately, half-way through the game the rain started coming down a bit yet. Concerned for the boys’ safety, the game was stopped and everyone was declared a winner for the day!
Although the activities were cut suddenly, everyone was still in a good mood while eating their prepared lunch. You could tell that everyone had a good time, since everyone was smiling and talking to each other while sitting down with their food. Even though the rain came out of nowhere, it did nothing to dampen the spirits of the kids and volunteers.
When the last of the food was eaten, everyone gathered back around to the basketball court. The rain had stopped again, so it was possible to step out once more. The kids were given gifts by Kuya Prince. Along with the school supplies he distributed, each of them got their very own Prince Archer shirt and the Pangarap Foundation was gifted with 5 brand new basketballs so they could continue to practice what they learned from the day.
Before all the goodbyes were said, the boys and volunteers gathered around to have a group picture. Kuya Prince was called forward so everyone could sing him a happy birthday. He then left the kids with the message that they should stay in school and study, also work hard for their dreams because they can do anything if they set their mind to it.
All in all it was an excellent day for everyone. U! Happy is thankful to Kuya Prince and his family for being kind enough to spend some time with the boys of Pangarap Foundation, who were all very fun and loving kids. We can’t wait to go back there again!

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