About Youth Basketball Guyana
Youth Basketball Guyana– the premier provider of programs and services for youth basketball at the grass-root and high school levels in Guyana.
YBG is registered as a Non-Profit Organization under the laws of Guyana and is run by volunteers.
YBG views basketball through the lens of holistic youth development, which has inspired the organization’s core values of Leadership, Scholarship, Prowess, and has guided its Mission.
YBG's mission is to build a progressive structure for youth development through basketball; by establishing better links between grass-root and school activities, while creating a pathway for more elite-level participation and performance-through the nurturing of a new breed (generation) of ‘student-athletes’.
Our main programs are- the ‘Regional Conference Tournaments’ in its ninth year and the ‘National School Basketball Championships’ in its fourteenth year. The first National School Basketball Festival was played from June 26-30, 2006 involving 18 schools in a single-elimination tournament. From its inception, the NSBF has been a partnership between Youth Basketball Guyana and stakeholders to develop a structured National School Basketball Championship. Over the last 15 years, the program has grown significantly and now includes Regional (ZONE) Tournaments, in order to qualify for the National Championship. National titles are contested for under-14, 16, 18 and Girls Development. The tournament is also used to identify players for the YBG Developmental program, which serves as a prep for selection to Junior National Teams.
The National School Basketball Festival is acknowledged as the National School Basketball Championships of Guyana.
Among the other valuable programs that YBG offers- are tournaments at the beginning and end of each year, an active mini basketball network for primary schools, summer camps, players’ education seminars, and a coach’s development. YBG also collaborates closely with the Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation in preparing and managing national teams (u14 to u19).
The success Guyana basketball had in finishing second in the Caribbean Basketball Confederation Championships in 2016, and ably competing at both the CENTRO Basketball under 15 and 17 Championships, was largely due to the cumulative effort of the YBG developmental work over the years.
Since the advent of YBG, there have been many opportunities for our ‘student-athletes’ to grow and gain local and international exposure. Four (4) of the players on the 2018 senior men national team that won the Caribbean Senior Championships, were solidly nurtured in the NSBF. The youngest, eighteen-year-old Stanton Rose and Kevon Wiggins, both now playing at the collegiate level in the United States. We are equally proud of our impact on women where the next generation of women basketball players are being developed; remarkably over 80% of the last women senior national team were the direct product of the NSBF (9 of the 13 girls were still in high school).
Ultimately, YBG hopes to change the culture of youth basketball in Guyana by nurturing quality ‘student-athletes’ through high-quality programs and competitions 8-19 years old and to provide opportunities for advancement for those who work within the youth basketball environment.
YBG main partners and sponsors are- Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport, National Sports Commission, Ministry of Education, Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation, Banks DIH Ltd, Edward B. Beharry and Company, ExxonMobil Guyana, Bounty farm Ltd, John Fernandes Ltd, and Edison Chouest Offshore.
