Natasha is Russian by birth and now lives in Stratford. Her journey to Newham began near Sochi, home of the 2014 Winter Olympics, where she established herself as an international player. “My passion was basketball and I was lucky enough to represent Russia,” she said. She brought that passion to Newham in 1989 as a single mother with two young boys.

In 2005, she took her then teenage sons to Balaam Park to give them their first basketball lesson. They loved it so much that they told all their friends.

Other youngsters hanging around the park asked if they could join in. Within a month, Natasha had more than 30 kids turning up each week.

A year later, she set up a charity and opened a bank account with £20. She had no experience, but felt she had to do something.

“It was a struggle for a lot of young people in Newham,” she said. “They didn’t have the opportunity they may have elsewhere. It was all about giving every young person the same opportunity that I had to play sport.”

The name for her charity — NASSA – came from the young people. They sat in the park and asked what they should call themselves. They were from Newham, basketball was a sport, they were learning together as an academy and all the youngsters said loudly: “We are all stars,” so Newham All Star Sports Academy (NASSA) was born.

In 2008, Anthony Okereafor was playing basketball at a NASSA session. Anthony’s phone was in his bag, so he didn’t hear it until the session had finished. One of his best friends had been trying to call to say he had been stabbed in a park. Anthony rushed over there, but his friend tragically died in his arms. The boy started to educate young people about how dangerous it is to carry a knife. With NASSA and the Metropolitan Police, he launched the Carry A Basketball Not A Blade (CABNAB) campaign to talk about knife crime across local schools.

Natasha wanted to make NASSA more than just a basketball club. By offering young people the support to gain qualifications as a basketball coach, the kids realised that they could become future sports leaders.

But rebuilding the youngsters’ trust had been one of the main challenges – these young people found it hard to trust people without the same life experience. That’s why she recruited basketball coaches from local communities – they understood the temptations that lure young people into drugs, alcohol, crime, anti-social behaviours and gangs.

When the first Covid wave hit Newham in 2020, young people had to stay indoors, with many experiencing difficult home lives. They found it hard to talk to parents, often sharing the bedroom with another member of the family. “In the first wave alone, six NASSA kids lost a parent to Covid. Five were in their 40s, one in his 50s. All were from the BAME community. These personal tragedies didn’t just affect the young people who lost a parent, they affected their NASSA friends, wondering if one of their parents would be the next one,” said Natasha. The charity set up Zoom calls that revealed the destructive impact of COVID-19 on youngsters’ mental health.

One of the hardest times came after the first lockdown was lifted in June 2020. NASSA couldn’t start up sessions again and when they finally did, they had to play basketball outdoors, limited to a maximum of six people. “The young people were suddenly allowed out of their homes but they were limited to one hour of basketball each week. All of the temptations that basketball kept them away from were right there in their faces again.”
The charity is home for young offenders excluded from schools or those at risk of being excluded – that basketball pitch clearly never turned anyone away. “If anyone reading this now feels that they want to volunteer for NASSA, please get in touch. Every young person deserves a chance and I am committed to helping every one of them if I can”.

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