In a perfect world, sports are the great equalizer. In reality, expenses like equipment, program fees and transportation cause a barrier of entry before many reach the court.
Shooting Touch, an international sport-for-development organization out of Boston, envisions a world where sport is a global agent of change. The nonprofit operates two programs — one in Boston and one in Eastern Rwanda — that redefine how sport impacts community.
In Rwanda, Shooting Touch serves over 3,000 girls and women through year-round weekly programming, turning basketball courts into classrooms, community centers and health clinics.
In Boston, Shooting Touch serves over 500 girls, challenging existing socioeconomic disparities by providing an abundance of free basketball programming.
"They're girls that are wanting to be part of a team, wanting to have free access to athletic, physical, mental, social health activity," said Lindsey Kittredge, co-founder of Shooting Touch.
A fraction of that group plays on the AAU circuit.
AAU the Right Way, Shooting Touch's five-team program, provides 60 girls the opportunity to play competitive basketball, free of cost.
Christina Pham, the 2024-25 Gatorade Player of the Year in Massachusetts and a freshman at Fairfield, credited the organization for changing the trajectory of her life.
"I was an unconfident, quiet Vietnamese girl from the projects. I have great family members who always wanted me to have the best future possible, but the socioeconomic situation and neighborhoods I grew up in felt limiting and were not supportive of my future."
In high school, Christina Pham earned three New England Preparatory School Athletic Council championships while scoring over 1,000 points. She is averaging 5.3 points and nearly 14 minutes heading into the NCAA tournament. (Photos courtesy of Lindsey Kittredge)
"Shooting Touch allows inner-city girls and women facing gender-based inequity to have opportunities they would not otherwise have access to," added Pham, whose Fairfield team faces Notre Dame in the first round of the NCAA tournament on Saturday. "Not only are there health clinics and enrichment, but Shooting Touch competes at some of the highest levels of AAU and grassroots basketball, elevating young athletes into collegiate players and empowering young women of color with tools to navigate society and give back to their community."
Sisterhood
When Pham joined Shooting Touch in seventh grade, she found something she never knew she didn't have.
"For the first time, I felt like I could relate to a group of people just like me, young girls of color who share the experience of being raised by a single parent or growing up in the inner city," she said. "We shared the joy of a sport and the joy of community."
Tahira Muhammad joined the Shooting Touch AAU program with Pham, and the two formed a lifelong friendship based on their similarities and love of basketball.
"Having that camaraderie and space where I felt super comfortable to be myself, express myself and feel the love from the people around me and not face judgment was something I appreciated," said Muhammad, now a sophomore at Dartmouth.
Tahira Muhammad, a sophomore at Dartmouth, was her high school's president and leader of the Black Student Union, Sister to Sister club and the Varsity Athlete Mentors club.
Kittredge and her husband, Justin, started Shooting Touch for this reason.
"Our players get the benefit of looking around and being part of a team with girls that look like them, which is amazing, especially for the racial inequities our country has experienced. It's been a huge blessing for so many of them to be in like-minded environments," Kittredge said. "But also these girls are incredibly talented athletes, and some of them wouldn't be able to play a lot of the AAU youth sport structure."
By working with over 60 donors and partners like the NBA Foundation and Converse, Shooting Touch fully funds the costs of travel and gear that youth sports and travel basketball require.
Kittredge recognized Shooting Touch is not just about athletic opportunities but educational ones, too. For her players, life off the court means part-time jobs to support themselves. Shooting Touch offers job opportunities and paid internships within the organization.
"We can minimize the roadblocks for the girls that are in our program to get to their academic goals … to support them not only from the basketball side but setting up an academic trajectory to give them as much upward mobility as possible," Kittredge said.
Muhammad and Pham earned Division I scholarships at Dartmouth and Fairfield, respectively.
"The confidence that I play with, and the chip on my shoulder I got from where I grew up, prepared me for college because Shooting Touch gave me the tools to be confident in who I am," Pham said.
"Sport is not necessarily an equalizer if there aren't certain opportunities people just can't afford. Shooting Touch opens that door where everyone's on the same playing field. You have an opportunity to go further just because you had the first entryway," Muhammad said.
Rwanda
Across the world, the nongovernmental organization has provided the infrastructure, equipment and capacity to grow basketball in rural Rwanda, an area with overpopulation, limited resources and health inequality.
"The two missions are the same, essentially. It's using basketball as the platform to connect youth and women to healthier futures," Kittredge said. "The need is obviously very different, but the same problem exists for creating access to play and not only get physically active, but having the ripple effect of health, gender equity, disease prevention, health promotion and upward mobility."
Shooting Touch's fellowship program brings former college basketball players to Rwanda for a year of service to coach, play, build courts and impact the community. They see it as a basketball Peace Corps.
Muhammad and Pham traveled to Rwanda in high school, experiencing Shooting Touch from a global perspective.
Pham and Muhammad both visited Rwanda as part of a service trip during high school. On International Women's Day, Pham and Muhammad marched throughout rural Rwanda, holding up signs for women's empowerment as they walked to the Shooting Touch courts. Pham said that people started joining in, from little boys, to men, to women from all over the village.
"As soon as we approached the dirt path leading to the two courts that Shooting Touch built and painted, old women chanted and sang while playing drums, and I immediately felt tears forming," Pham said. "This was a community that lived in houses that were barely houses. Most did not have shoes or clean clothes or easy access to food and water, yet they gathered and enjoyed the simple presence of community as if that was all they needed."
From there, the entire day was filled with a Shooting Touch health clinic and a 3x3 basketball tournament.
"My trip to Rwanda taught me that the role of community transcends any situation or environment in which it grows," Pham said.
"We experienced and saw people who just live completely different lives than we do," Muhammad added. "The main thing was no matter how disadvantaged some of these people are, basketball was still the same for them and brought them so much joy and light and empowerment. It's the same here (in the U.S.), seeing people from all different places all come together and love basketball."
March Madness
On Saturday, Pham and Fairfield will take on Notre Dame in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Entering as an 11 seed, it is the fourth time in five years the Stags have been in the tournament.
As Pham prepares to take the court, she remembers where she came from and what led her to this position.
"I would not be where I am without Shooting Touch."
