Beijing, China July 14-17 EVENT PARTNERS

The Basketball without Borders Asia 2005 program began its final day on Sunday at Beijing’s Qinghua University by hosting 27 students from the Fuyang AIDS Orphan Salvation Association, a groundbreaking NGO in China’s central Anhui province. Together with FIBA, the China Basketball Association and the university, Basketball without Borders helped the students travel to the capital, where they met Rockets' star center Yao Ming, Spurs' guard Tony Parker, Hornets' forward Bostjan Nachbar, and 76ers' center Samuel Dalembert and forward Kyle Korver.

“It was great fun to ride in the train to come to Beijing,” 13-year-old Ding Kaipeng said. “But it was better to see Yao Ming. I think he’s at least two times bigger than me.”

The meeting, organized to raise awareness and understanding in China about HIV and AIDS, was also serious. Several of the students from Anhui told stories of how their parents had contracted HIV by selling blood to traveling “blood heads,” traders who infected thousands of people in the 1990s by using unsanitary methods, such as reusing needles to draw blood.

“My parents both died of AIDS,” 14-year-old Huang Jinhong said. “Then I was only a little more than 10 years old. When they passed away I didn’t have any help and my family was very poor.”

Twelve-year-old Ding Aiyu said that because his parents have AIDS some of his classmates at school wouldn’t play with him. “There was a lot of stigma and discrimination,” he said.

Ever since the children began receiving support and care from the Fuyang AIDS Orphan Salvation Association, which has grown from one child to more than 260 in less than two years, however, life has gotten better for them. Each of the children who spoke said that they were thankful for the organization. “I didn’t used to want to speak,” Huang Jinhong said. “But after coming to the center to get education and share my experiences, I have become more confident.”

The NBA players hoped they could help the children feel even more confident and could raise awareness about the disease within China. Each player walked to the gathering holding hands with two children, some of whom were infected with HIV at birth. Later the players ate lunch with the students.

Dalembert encouraged the children to stay positive. “Watching you kids,” he said, “I know you haven’t done anything wrong. How you deal with this [disease] is amazing.”

Yao, who has worked to raise awareness and understanding in China through a series of public appearances and service announcements, including one with former Los Angeles Lakers great Ervin “Magic” Johnson, who has lived with AIDS for many years, was moved by the children’s stories. “I can tell that you are all full of hope and life,” he told them. “There are many kids in the world who need our help and we will help.”

Also attending the gathering was renowned AIDS scientist and activist David Ho. He stressed the importance of having national role models like Yao support people with AIDS and HIV. “We want to send simple messages of awareness and the need for non-discrimination,” he said.

The children were quick to make friends with the players, getting autographs and even singing for them. “The students promised me they will try hard in school,” Nachbar told the crowd after lunch, “and I promised them I’d teach them a little about basketball when I get to come back to China.”

After the gathering Qinghua University students led the Basketball without Borders participants in a seminar about AIDS and AIDS prevention. Part of the goal, Vice Dean of Qinghua’s School of Journalism Li Xiguang said, “is to fight the stigma associated with AIDS.”

In the afternoon the campers loaded onto buses and traveled to the Guanganmen Stadium, home turf to Beijing’s China Basketball Association team the Olympians, for a camp-ending all-star game.

The game got off to a fast start as team North made a quick lay up and Chinese player Liu Xiaoyu pulled up for a 15-foot jump-shot for team South that hit nothing but net. By halftime team South had pulled ahead with a seven-point lead.

In the second half the game pace was furious as the campers rained in jump shots and crashed the boards, eliciting cheers from the NBA players coaching them. At one point 19-year-old Iranian center Jaber Darrehsari – who is 2.23 meters tall – slammed the ball without leaving the ground; at another moment Japanese guard Kawamura Takuya, who was later awarded the camp’s MVP award, ducked his defender and then drained a three-pointer.

When the buzzer sounded the final score was North 71, South 60. But for camp director Dean Cooper, a coach and scout for the Houston Rockets, all of the participants were winners. “You gave us a great week and great basketball,” he told them. It was the kind of positive spirit that permeated the inaugural Basketball without Borders Asia program.