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Yesterday we showed you the 50 children who have been spending their summer in football training camp at the Yabra field. Across town, 100 youths spent the last three weeks of their summer playing basketball inside the City Center. They are participants in the First Caribbean Bank’s summer training camp which ended today with a tournament of champions. And the champion of those champions are 14 year old Kachief Thomas for the Under 16s and 15 year old Glenda Torres who took home MVP trophies. Kachief told us why he chose the basketball camp over a trip to the states.

Kachief Thomas, MVP
“It feels so great because this is all I do, study basketball. After school it is straight on the basketball court. My mom always ‘rail up’ with me so basketball is everything I study and in my whole life I was wishing to get an MVP and this is my eight MVP championship trophy.”

Keith Swift,
How do you feel about having won the MVP?

Glenda Torres, Female MVP
“Good, very good. We participated to practice to go to Honduras.”

Kachief Thomas,
“I was sure I was going to get the MVP because I lead my team the way they wanted to go so obviously they had faith in me that we would have win the championship.”

Cojac Smith, First Caribbean Bank
“The purpose of the camp basically was to get the kids off the streets, give them something constructive to do during the summer. With the increasing amount of crime that is happening through out Belize, and Belize City especially, we are trying to raise awareness to the kids for them to do something constructive during their spare time.”

Keith Swift,
So if you hadn’t come to the basketball camp, where would you have been?

Kachief Thomas,
“Well I mi business fi gaan dah States and thing for a little basketball thing but I rather stayed here and have my fun with my Belizean people.”

Keith Swift,
What do you see for yourself in the future in basketball?

Kachief Thomas,
“Well I have friends and thing who tell me if I continue keep up my sports, I will see my way ahead.”

Cojac Smith,
“We are very satisfied with the outcome. We targeted for 120 kids but we got about 100 which is still good for us. Each child started a new account with First Caribbean. Presently that is what Miss Castillo and Miss Polonio are doing, they are distributing the accounts to each of the kids that participated in the camp.”

As First Caribbean Bank’s Cojac mentioned each participant took home medals and an ATM cards for the accounts each opened with the $20 they signed up for the camp with.