Basketball star Wenyen Gabriel building hoop dreams for refugees and South Sudan

Basketball courts and academies for South Sudan’s future stars

Keeping to his childhood promise of building the country up, Gabriel has continued to return to South Sudan since Paris 2024. It was not the international spotlight and headlines that he brought to his homeland however, but something even more tangible – basketball courts.

The 29-year-old set the first court up in the nation’s capital Juba and the second in Doro refugee camp in Maban Country, home to more than 100,000 people.

Gabriel, now also a UN Refugee Agency’s (UNHCR) Goodwill Ambassador, does not plan to stop there. He is aiming to build basketball courts in all of the country’s 10 states and ultimately set up academies to foster the next generation of South Sudanese players.

But making the South Sudanese internationally competitive in the sport is only part of the goal.

Even if the vast majority of the kids who take up basketball in South Sudan do not reach the same career heights as Gabriel, the Paris 2024 Olympian is confident that the broader effect would be worth the effort.

“Sports could be the vehicle to help people get to school. It could be the vehicle for people to share their voices. It could be a vehicle to bring visibility,” Gabriel said. “It does so many different things for the community, and that’s why I wanted to bring sports to all over South Sudan.”