Afghanistan: 'Can Joy be denied?'
29-12-2011 Photo gallery
At the ICRC's Orthopaedic Centre in Kabul, playing wheelchair basketball is a welcome diversion for both patients and staff. Inspired by a training course they received last May the players have practiced together every week since then.
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Last May, wheelchair basketball player and coach, Jess Markt conducted a week-long training session for patients at the ICRC's Orthopaedic Centre in Kabul. The patients had been playing basketball together for some time, but it was more like 'buzkashi' – the ferocious no-holds-barred local equivalent of polo – than basketball, according to Alberto Cairo, head of the ICRC's Orthopaedic programme. On the first day of training, Jess explained the basic rules of the game, watched by Alberto (standing right with glasses) and other members of the Ortho Centre staff.

After explaining the theory, Jess led the players in a warm up session around the basketball court. They were using low-cost, specially adapted wheelchairs built by Motivation, a British NGO, which allowed their riders to manoeuvre and turn with ease. One player spoke for all of them when he expressed his delight, saying the chairs were "light, fast and very comfortable."