By Chad Pawson
There is an international flavour to the McNabb community centre’s drop-in basketball program. Chinese players in NBA jerseys and young Sikhs with topknots say that hitting the court with friends and strangers helps them integrate into the community as new Canadians.
Daniel Ding, a 20-year-old student of computer system engineering at Carleton University, immigrated to Ottawa four years ago
He played basketball in China for six years and recently, started coming to the McNabb drop-in to shoot some hoops.
Ding says playing basketball in Canada helped him develop his English skills.
“When I came to Canada I had a little English, basic stuff but I could read pretty well,” says Ding.
“Some English you can’t learn in the classroom but you have to learn it on the courts.”
The gym at McNabb is buried in the basement of the building. It’s poorly lit and has seen its share of abuse.
But players don’t seem to care, speaking English, Mandarin and French as the scrimmage continues.
Greg Andújar has been running the program for the past 2 years.
It runs every Friday from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. — and at $2 a game — is the “cheapest” ball in town, he says.
“Some guys don’t even speak English, but they all help each other learn to play and by running around the courts it helps them speak something other than their own language,” Andújar says. “This type of thing definitely helps them integrate, but it also allows them to be together with people from their own country.”
Raminder Singh,18,lives a few blocks away and plays regularly, as does his 14-year-old brother Gurman.
They immigrated to Canada from India when Raminder was five.
He played basketball and volleyball as a boy and he now plays basketball for Glebe Collegiate Institute.
“I played the traditional Indian sports like cricket before coming to Canada but I also played a bit of volleyball and basketball there,” he says.
“Having this sort of thing to come to has really helped give me and my brother somewhere to go and meet people. It keeps us from walking around on the streets.”
Sue Dunton, a city communications officer, says many immigrants are well-equipped to find new opportunities.
“They know to go to public libraries to use the free computers to find information on recreation programs,” she says.
Wilda Phillips, vice-president of the YMCA/YWCA National Capital Region, says the Y is one of the first places immigrants come to when they arrive.
“Bear in mind that new Canadians are very familiar with the Y as we are in 140 countries in the world,” she says. “If you come into our lobby, you will see that we are very reflective of Centretown.”