Empowering kids through sports
Martin Alindogan, age 15, is passionate about golf and basketball. For golf, he represented the Philippines in the Junior World Golf Championships in 2016 and in the US Kids Golf World Championships, both held in the UA. He is a part of International School Manila’s Basketball Varsity and Golf Varsity teams and represented the school in the International Association of Southeast Asian Schools (IASAS) tournament. Despite the fact that he is just a freshman, he was awarded MVP for both basketball and golf this year.
It is this passion that got him interested in helping younger kids. In 2016, he assisted in coaching the basketball summer camp for ISM elementary kids. He enjoyed interacting with them and sharing the moves his own coaches have taught him through the years. Through these camps, he realized that he wanted to reach out to underprivileged kids who surely enjoy basketball, but do not have the opportunity to be exposed to training and skills development.
The idea of establishing a basketball camp for povertystricken kids outside of Manila has been on his mind for a long time now, but he finally got the courage and decided to do it only recently. On June 3, he launches a basketball camp in Tacloban called Rebound. He works with kids, ages 9-12, who were displaced during Typhoon Haiyan. They were placed in a temporary shelter after the typhoon, and are being moved to a more permanent place. Through Rebound, he will teach them the skills he knows best and give the participants each a basketball to use even after the camp is over.
Martin thought of the name Rebound because, in the long term, he would like to help kids who have encountered hardships and empower them to bounce back through sports.
In order to hold the basketball clinic, Martin needs to raise funds. He didn’t want to just ask for donations from his family and friends. Having gone through a photography class, he decided to showcase photographs he took from a recent trip to Africa and sell these to fund his outreach program.
To spice up this exhibit, Martin (a “sneaker head”) is helping a cancer patient fund his treatment by selling the patient’s rubber shoes collection, a number of them quite rare, many of them unused or only slightly so. The rubber shoes will also be exhibited.
Martin’s exhibit, called “Visions of Africa,” will be held on Saturday, May 13, at 106 Shaw Blvd, Barangay Kapitolyo, Pasig City.