Ex-Raptors exec Masai Ujiri remains focused on humanitarian work as Giants of Africa Festival nears

NEW YORK (AP) — Masai Ujiri’s July is shaping up to be quite the rollercoaster ride. The recently-fired former Toronto Raptors executive is navigating his sudden departure from a franchise where he’d spent 13 seasons while also launching the second edition of his private foundation’s Giants of Africa Festival — all within a one-month span.

The humanitarian work, Ujiri pledged, will continue regardless of his employment status. The British-born NBA executive, raised in his father’s native Nigeria, founded Giants of Africa in 2003 — back when he was just starting off as a scout and long before becoming the first African team president of a professional North American sports franchise.

“It’s an obligation for me,” Ujiri said. “It’s a passion.”

The foundation’s ambitions have risen with his own success. Giants of Africa has reached thousands of campers across 18 countries. It has helped build more than three dozen courts on the continent. High-profile supporters include Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s The Archewell Foundation. 2023’s inaugural Giants of Africa Festival united more than 250 boys and girls around a week of basketball clinics, life skills lessons and community building that culminated in a concert headlined by South African superstar Tyla. The goal? A “borderless Africa” as Ujiri likes to say.

The festival returns to Kigali, Rwanda, on July 26 with a lineup featuring Nigerian pop singer Ayra Starr and WNBA great Candace Parker. Two-time NBA Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard — brought to Toronto by Ujiri for the team’s championship-winning 2018-2019 season — will mentor campers and train underserved youth.

Ujiri discussed the upcoming event, and his future, with The Associated Press. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Q: Why’d you expand Giants of Africa Festival 2025 to 320 young participants from 20 African nations?

A: When we had the last festival, we really focused on — whether it was the basketball, the life skills, the coaching, the mentorship — we focused on culture. We focused on the whole ecosystem of how we feel kids need this opportunity to grow. It really inspired us to think about how we bring this to more countries.

We’re doing this incredible, incredible fashion show showing the print, the threads of Africa, and who we really are. It used to be weird where you’d see somebody wearing cloth from Africa. Now it’s part of the fashion. It’s part of us. It’s just like Afrobeats — it’s part of life everywhere. Everybody wants to wear a boubou. You see a lot of fashion designers from all over the world using our prints. We want to showcase that and give these youth the opportunity to see that this is how they can also expand their minds.

Q: How does it feel to see basketball investments lead to the sport growing across the continent?

A: It’s been unbelievable. With these camps, it started off as basketball development, but you’ve seen that really become something that has really grown even bigger. I saw Pascal (Siakam), I saw (Joel) Embiid, I saw all these guys as youth in camps. Seeing them as 15-, 16-year-old kids in camp, you can’t even project. And that tells you how much talent we have on the continent. I always say Africa’s biggest jewel is the talent of the youth. One out of every four people in the world are going to be Africans by the year 2050 and the median age is 20. We should be investing on the continent.

Q: How does Giants of Africa use sports to get the youth to consider different careers?

A: I’m the prime example of that. I didn’t play in the NBA. I didn’t even play high-level college or high-level Europe. The entry point for me was a scout in the NBA. From then on lots of people helped me to create this path that I’m on still. I go back to Basketball Without Borders, when the NBA gave me the opportunity to be a director. That has led to me becoming an executive in the NBA. That’s the example I want to give.

That’s why we have so many people coming to this festival to really show these kids — whether it’s me or a journalist or a sports doctor or sports lawyer — there’s so many careers. And the start is sports and doing it passionately and doing it well.

Q: How did women’s empowerment become a focus for the foundation’s work?

A: When I first started, I was doing boys camps. Not every kid is going to make it to the NBA. So we started focusing on life skills. That was teaching respect, honesty, being on time. One of the big focuses was respect for women.

So, I’m challenging these boys but I’m not challenging myself. I can’t say “women’s empowerment” and “respect women” and just do these camps for boys. So, we introduced the girls. And it’s not 50 boys and 10 girls just for token. It’s equality. They all have a basketball and they have the same court time. We can’t just say it. We actually have to do it.

Q: What does your recent Toronto Raptors departure mean for your humanitarian work?

A: Job, no job, wherever I am, whatever kind of job I’m doing, Giants of Africa is key. The focus will always be that just because I owe it to the youth of the continent. I owe it to the continent. My goal is not how big does Giants of Africa get. I look at it as: how big are these youth going to become? They’ll go on to do other things. They could go on to become a president or become a governor or become president of a team. The hope is that this experience here will even make them reimagine many of the things that they want to do. So, Giants of Africa will never go anywhere.

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