Date: Saturday 2nd October

Registration Cost: $50 per team of 5

RSVP: Anthony Nguyen – 0402 787 827

Or email: info@ubl.net.au

1.4 Billion Reasons is an engaging, thought-provoking multimedia presentation designed to educate audiences about the challenges of extreme poverty.

Endorsed by development and economics experts, and based on leading research, it articulates the facts of extreme poverty and demonstrates how everyone can be part of the movement to end extreme poverty.

1.4 Billion Reasons explains what it means to live in extreme poverty, and why extreme poverty can be ended within a generation. It outlines success stories, and addresses how barriers to development can be overcome. Specially trained presenters equip audiences with the tools they need to join the movement to end extreme poverty, and provide easy everyday actions that allow everyone to make a difference.

Proudly sponsored by Johannessen Legal & Migration, the National Convention Centre Canberra, and the Big Bangs.

DATE: Thursday 26th August

TIME: 4pm

VENUE: National Convention Centre Canberra

RSVP: pierre@johannessenlegal.com

Tea & Coffee served at venue.

NUMBERS ARE LIMITED.

Kicks for Kids - PNG

On Thursday 12th August, Big Bangs Australia delivered 100+ pairs of shoes to Basketball Canberra.

From their website:

Basketball ACT is supporting the FIBA Oceania ‘Soul to Sole-Our Heart to Your Feet’project. Donations of shoes(and maybe socks) helps in community and school basketball programs in Pacific countries. The countries being partnered are small in population and poor by our standards.Despite this, basketball continues to hold its own in being the preferred second sport in the Pacific. Your donation can be given to the Duty Manager at either stadium or the front office at Belconnen.

The Big Bangs are always happy to support great programs like this, and urge every baller in Canberra to search through their closets and pull out their least used kicks to send to deserving kids in the Asia-Pacific region.

These shoes will be sent off to Papua New Guinea… you can tell the Big Bangs have been donating when the CEO’s AF1′s are in the mix… have fun kids!

Tournoi GAP - les vainqueurs

Malgré l’appel du bikini et la chaleur écrasante du mois d’août gapençais, nous avons été plus d’une cinquantaine de fous de la balle orange à participer au tournoi Big Bangs du 8 août à Gap. De nombreux jeunes du Gap basket, accompagnés d’anciennes gloires locales, ont vu débarquer sur leurs terres des grenoblois descendus pour un weekend guinguette haut-alpin, avec des manosquins, des parisiens et même une guest star lilloise ! Ce cocktail explosif avait la main plus chaude que jamais avec des switch à faire frétiller les marmottes et des cross à dépoiler un yéti… Sous les effluves du barbecue et les lyrics des fugees, ça a dribblé sec dans les montagnes.

Le tournoi 3×3 a vu triompher la team SOH2F, montée spécialement de Manosque pour l’évènement. Malgré la route et le retour de vacances, Malik, Sohfiane et Sébastien avaient la pâte chaude et l’œil aiguisé avec un festival à 3 points, et un esprit fairplay remarqué par de nombreux participants.

Côté artilleurs longue distance, c’est un coup de tonnerre qui s’est abattu sur les Hautes-Alpes avec la victoire de Yann, le breton expatrié chez les mecs, et une belle 1ère place pour Morgane chez les filles.

Par équipe, le Shooting Starz a vu la team Big Bangs emmenée par Domy, Simon et Laurène, exploser les chrono en 22 secondes. Big Up spécial aux canoniers des Chibani dans ce concours, et à leur bon esprit tout au long de la journée.

Une mention spéciale aux journalistes de la Provence, venus tâter le cuir avec nous.

Big Up aux 12 équipes venues faire crisser les sneakers : Les Russes, le Jah Crew, le Gap Basket, les Chibani, la Momo-Team, la Team

Tournoi GAP - les gachettes alpines

Spike-Lee, les SOH2F, les 86,7, les Blueberry, et aux trois teams B*B.
La Big Bang Family remercie tous les participants venus dribbler pour la bonne cause, en espérant que vous avez apprécié l’esprit Big Bangs et qu’on vous reverra bientôt sous les arceaux…

Merci également à la Ville de Gap, pour la mise à disposition du gymnase, au Gap Basket Hautes-Alpes pour le matériel, et à la boulangerie La Champsaurine pour le pain et les pizzas !

Enfin, merci aux bénévoles de la Big Bang Family pour leur soutien tout le weekend, donner un coup de main ça paraît souvent pas grand chose, mais sans vous une association n’existe pas…

On vous invite à suivre les actualités Big Bangs sur Facebook, et l’avancée du projet à Kaboul sur notre site internet et le site de l’ONG internationale.

Keep ballin’, three fingers in the air !

Big Bangs France

(Editor’s Note: Big Bangs France held this tournament to raise funds for our partner organisation Skateistan.)

Tournoi GAP - vainqueurs du Shooting Stars

The city of Gap, located in the south eastern part of France, is about to experience its first Big Bang event.  The French crew is enhancing its network to new ballers from the mountains !

Barbecue, music, 3×3 tournaments, sun and more will be waiting for you ! so if you’re around, take time to pass by ’cause “ain’t no mountains high enough to keep you away” from ballin’!

Peace
Julien Kerdoncuf
Big Bang Ballers France

The St Vincent de Paul Society’s 40,000 members and volunteers work hard to assist people in need and combat social injustice across Australia. Internationally, the Society operates in 130 countries and has over 950,000 members.  A small part of their work has been school holiday camps for disadvantaged and at-risk kids; you just know we couldn’t resist helping them out!

Our group of 10 volunteers ran the kids through warmups, team-building activities, several drills and of course basketball games.  Through the course of the day our volunteers set a great example for the kids; they showed patience, an ability to listen and interact, and where required stepped in to resolve any conflicts or issues.

Big Bangs’ basketball clinics are a small yet significant part of our overall services.  By providing young people with positive role models, lots of encouragement and enthusiasm, not to mention a whole day of team-building, we are giving kids the opportunity to see an alternate way of life to that which they may be exposed to.  Over the years we have found that even simple encouragement throughout the day can be a wonderful catalyst for a young person’s development and increased awareness of their environment and the people within it.

It was a wonderful day, and would not have been possible without our great volunteers and the lovely staff at St Vinnies.

Big Bangs and St Vinnies staff

Teams from Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane and hometown Canberra came together to celebrate the talents of Sudanese-Australian basketball!

The weekend included an All-Star Game, Dunk Contest and 3-pt shootout.

The games were all exciting and hotly contested; plenty of dunks, plenty of highlights and of course a ton of support from all of Canberra’s basketball community.

After upsetting the firm favorites Melbourne to book a spot in the grand final, the Canberra Blue Eagles met the Canberra Spider Monkeys for a hometown 1-2 finish, capping off an extraordinary weekend.

Kalie Kamara

Big Bangs Australia is very proud to be sponsoring Kalie Kamara to participate in the Canberra Institute of Technology team currently playing at the Eastern University Games.

Kalie will be writing a story about his experience at the tournament very soon.

We wish him the bets of luck, and note that he is joined by fellow Big Bangs player Felix Chan!

On Monday 21 June, Tongue & Groove, our perennial sponsors, helped us celebrate by throwing a cocktail bash for some 70 of our friends and supporters.

It was a wonderful night, and we would like to make a special shout-out to some very special people:

Tongue & Groove – for being awesome supporters each and everyday.  They sponsor fundraising events, team bonding evenings, even the occasional (more like weekly) meeting and planning days.

Li’l Blossom – for providing not only an outstanding raffle item (a month’s worth of free fresh flowers!), but for also being such champions of our work!

Langley Pino Optics – another supporter from day 1, thank you for the Ferragamo sunglasses in our raffle, and thank you especially for believing in us from the start!

T-Heinrich by Janette Link - not often we get independent designers so ready to be a part of what we do, thank you so much!

Spader - speaking of independents, this is the 2nd time Spader is supporting us, and we’re very honoured!  Not only donating a highly sought-after money clip, Spader also donated the infamous DJ Rush… this is becoming the most popular part of our raffle…

Basketball Australia and Basketball Canberra – so thankful for the donation of shirts, balls and backpacks, thank you for your incredible show of support!

Tongue & Groove

Langley Pino Eyecare

Big Bangs and Vinnies CEO

Last Thursday evening, the Big Bangs – Australia team took part in the St Vincent De Paul Society’s CEO Sleepout, joining 684 Business & Community Leaders sleeping rough in capital cities across Australia, in a bid to experience first hand what it is like to be homeless, along the way raising $2.6 million, which will go directly towards the ongoing provision of Vinnies’ homeless services across the country.

It was cold, windy, altogether miserable, and unfortunately a reality for far too many Australians.

Why did we support?  The article below from our CEO should explain…

He has two battered knapsacks slung over his shoulders, plastic bags hung like curtains on one arm, tattered clothing from head to toe, what looks to be the remnants of an ancient umbrella in the clutches of his other hand.

I’ve seen this gentleman line up for food from local charities, seen him walk from one end of our small city to the other, watched him sit patiently on a park bench in the middle of the city centre. At times, when the weather gets too cold, in that very brief period between the close of shops in the mall and the final lockdown of the buildings, he makes his way through the glass doors and sits by the nearest air vent, calm, quiet, by himself.

I don’t know his name, his story, his background, yet in my city of 350,000 people, he is as ever-present as the great House on the Hill not far from here.

He is but 1 of the 105,000 Australians who sleep on the street every single night.

We’re not talking about Bangladesh or India or Colombia; this is the Lucky Country, with free healthcare, affordable housing, social security from A to Z and some of the best living conditions in the world.

How then is it possible to have so very many of our fellow citizens having to endure the harshness of street living, day in and day out?

In Canberra alone we have 1,364 people outside tonight, with no-where to go.

Sleeping Rough

This isn’t a problem half-way around the world. This is not an issue which enjoys much media coverage, and yet it is one of the most ridiculous, most frustrating situations in our country today.

A quarter of Australia’s homeless are children; that’s almost one in four homeless people under 18. Of every 42 Australian children under four, one has experienced homelessness.Every day, half the people who request immediate accommodation from the homeless service system are turned away, staggering when you consider 12,300 on an average day will be accommodated in services funded by the Government’s Supported Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP). Two in every 3 children who need support are also turned away, as are almost 80% percent of families. The Indigenous population is facing even worse statistics. While Indigenous Australians comprise 2.4 percent of the population, they represent 10 percent of the homeless.

Homelessness Australia is one of the many organizations trying to solve the problem. Their research shows homelessness can be caused by poverty, unemployment and by a critical shortage of affordable housing. Yet most disturbingly, domestic violence is the single largest cause of homelessness in Australia. Add triggers such as family breakdown, mental illness, sexual assault, addiction, financial difficulty, gambling and social isolation, and it quickly becomes apparent that solving homelessness in this country is not simply a matter of building more Government Housing.

Even more disturbing, there are signs that homelessness may be getting worse.

In a recent report, Don’t Dream It’s Over, the St Vincent de Paul Society found that the number of families with children seeking assistance from homelessness services increased by 30 per cent between 2002 and 2007. Homeless children too often become homeless teenagers and then homeless adults.

2005-06 SAAP data confirms this upward trend. The number of families with children seeking assistance from homelessness services has increased by 46 per cent over the past 10 years. The number of children in SAAP services has increased by 7.3 per cent over the same period. That means that each year, approximately 55,000 children accompany their parents into SAAP services, and these are just the figures we know of; the true extent of homelessness is understated because many homeless Australians do not approach government services. It is difficult to estimate the true number of families escaping violence while they are living temporarily with friends or family.

This Thursday, over 100 CEOs from a diverse range of industries will be sleeping outside in support of the St Vinnies CEO Sleepout project, which aims not only to raise funds to continue their support of our homeless, but also to raise the profile of this issue amongst ordinary Australians.

I will be taking part in the sleepout in front of the National Museum in Canberra. It will be cold, it will be wet, it will be windy.

But a man in my community walks the streets every day looking for a safe, dry place to sleep at night, with no security, no roof, no place to call home.

And that’s just not good enough.

Thank you to Damien, Rieuk, Brian and Mac for the support to our CEO throughout the event, as well as everyone who so generously donated to the cause through our link.

There’s still time to donate, so head here http://www.ceosleepout.org.au/location/ceoprofile.php?ceo=449 to do so!

Big Bangs Australia