Foundation celebrates girl child with 4th Jide Adeshina basketball tournament

The Hope for Second Chance (HOSEC) Foundation has hosted the fourth edition of the Jide Adeshina Female Basketball Tournament to commemorate the International Day of the Girl Child, 2025.

The tournament, which took place in Ibadan, Oyo State, was held on Saturday at the Adamasingba Stadium, Ibadan.

Executive Director of HOSEC, Mrs Ibukunoluwa Otesile, who spoke at the event, said that 42 girls representing different teams participated in the event.

She said that the International Day of the Girl Child was a day that the HOSEC Foundation held in high esteem.

She also said that the theme for this year’s Day is ‘The girl that I am, the change that I lead.’

According to her, the foundation has once again put in place activities that would ensure the girl child is empowered and enabled to develop alongside the boys.

She also disclosed that apart from the Jide Adeshina basketball tournament, the foundation also held such as the pad-up-a-girl child in at least five secondary schools, where girls were trained on menstrual hygiene.

The event equally featured the distribution of sanitary pads to the girls.

“Girls in the chosen schools will also be equipped with some skills, both soft skills and hard skills.

“One of the things we also try to do is to expose the girls to some people who have worked with us in the course of the year and who we believe could impact the younger generation positively.

“We try to reach out to such mentors so that they can inculcate their virtues into the girls.

“This year, we are also going to identify our star player or promising player and then connect them to these mentors to just help their journey in the future,” she said.

While speaking with journalists after the programme, the head coach in charge of basketball in Oyo State, Coach Taiye Shofolahan, said that a lot of people focus on soccer but insisted that there are opportunities in other sports.

Shofolahan said, “I don’t think they can do it alone because what it entails even more than what government can handle.

“If it can even get some individuals that can even help the government, like the way they are doing in South Africa. It is not the government that sponsors all of their games.

“We have companies that handle particular games by taking the players to national and international competitions.”

He stated that if such plans are adopted in Nigeria, basketball and other sports will become interesting to young and old.

Apart from a gold medal, a certificate and a trophy, won by the Jide Adesina Team Faith, which came tops, the team also received a cash award of N150,000 for taking the first position.

The sum of N100,000 went to HOSEC Foundation’s Team Hope, which came second, while the Goodness Morankinyo Team Strength received N50,000 for securing the third position.

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