Valencia Basket has completed another successful project with One Team, Euroleague Basketball’s social responsibility program.

The club has been working alongside social partner Proyecto Vivir to deliver weekly sessions every Thursday at the club’s Alqueria practice facilities for a group of 16 participants – eight boys and eight girls, aged between 13 and 17.

With the support of Valencia stars and One Team Ambassadors Victor Claver and Jasiel Rivero, they have used the power of basketball to learn about key life skills such as determination, perseverance, sacrifice, passion, discipline, and learning how to win and lose.

Paco Pardo, Valencia’s One Team Coach, explained: “From the beginning we try to know everyone in the project – meeting them, finding out where they come from. I think it’s a really innovative activity and the most important thing they take away is experience. How you live, how you overcome situations, asking questions so they can reflect and find answers in their own way. This is very important for their stability.”

One Team, supported by Turkish Airlines as the One Team Founding Patron and with the collaboration of Special Olympics as Proud Partner, uses basketball to achieve real social impact in our communities.

With an innovative model of interconnectedness across an entire continent, Euroleague Basketball and its clubs have developed a complete CSR program that brings together activities from each team in an integrated, impactful way, working under the theme of ‘community integration’ that actively addresses targets of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10 on Reduced Inequalities.

Each participating club develops a specific One Team project tailored to its own community needs to benefit groups in danger of exclusion due to problems such as substance abuse and gender, physical or intellectual disability. Since its founding in 2012, the One Team program has reached already directly and indirectly more than 23,000 participants through its various team projects.