I'm Chairman of Basketball Northants in the UK, a voluntary organisation that promotes basketball in the county. 

We have just completed a successful Youth Justice Basketball project at a local secondary school in a tough area of Northampton to engage with vunerable students.

On the last session I took along Andre Arrisol, a professional basketball player who grew up in Northampton and went on to play for England under 20 after completing his A levels at a Basketball Academy near Loughborough. He went to University in Hawaii and has been playing for Worthing Thunder in the Men's National League Division 1.

What was so inspiring for the students was that Andre could relate to them so well. When he was their age, while attending another local secondary school called Abbeyfield, he was at a crossroads...he could have joined a gang and entered drug culture or play basketball. His mum was so pleased he chose to play basketball. 

One boy said you don't need to do school work to play basketball. Andre was able to reinforce the importance of school work because to play basketball he had to gain 5 GCSEs, take his A levels and study for a degree.

To be honest I was really inspired by Andre and with a recent knife crime in the town resulting in the fatality of a boy of 16, I've decided to launch a campaign to take Andre into Northampton schools.
The campaign will be called:

"Carry a basketball not a blade."

Could you help me here if possible? It would be great to have Crowd funders supporting the campaign so we can reach out to as many Northamptonsecondary schools as possible.

My idea is that Andre goes into a school for the equivalent of a day or half days and is used to promote our important message "Carry a Basketball not a Blade. He could be used in a variety of ways...talking in assemblies, taking practical basketball sessions or engaging with smaller groups as we did with the Youth Justice project.

Thank you