BonnierHoops

Spoken-word contest Neighborhood Poetry. Book workshops and a DJ workshop on the basketball court. Plus Sweden's national basketball team, culture organization Gärigheter and the police joining young people in the Stockholm suburb of Kista - it's all part of BonnierHoops, an initiative of Bonnierförlagen, supported by the Swedish Basketball Federation and the afternoon paper Expressen, afellow Bonnier company, among many others.

With BonnierHoops, basketball gives disadvantaged youth a chance to take part in fun activities during July and August, while also being inspired to read.

The spoken-word contest using Swedish creole consisted of two semi-finals plus a final that was judged by a jury that included the poet Mara Lee, poetry-slam poet Sabrina Ibenjellal and rapper Ali Khamis. The winner was Mariama Jobe.

"Creole is a language that develops where two or more languages and cultures converge via migration or colonialism," says Alex Valencia Rodallac, from the organization Orten i fokus (The Neighborhood in Focus), who was project manager for the contest.

The culture collective Gärigheter also organized a writing workshop for youth built around the Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie's book We Should All Be Feminists, of which a Swedish translation was distributed to all 16-year-old students in the country.

On the basketball court, youth from Stockholm's northwest suburbs as well as the Järva area had a chance to challenge the police, firemen and the youth center Fryshuset in the street basketball contest 3x3. At the opening of the event, Bonnier authors Thomas Olsson, Niklas Krog and Farzad Farzaneh took to the court. Connected to the court were a library and a reading corner.

"We truly believe that basketball and reading go together and that the combination is a good way for us to meet all sort of young people," says Bodil Forsberg Unenge, CSR manager at Bonnierförlagen. "We who work with books and reading see increased competition for young people's time, and books need to get attention in many different places. By making BonnierHoops a fun place to meet, we hope to inspire creative ways of reading and writing."

Supporters of BonnierHoops also includes Järva Basket, Citycon Kista Galleria, Stockholm Stad, Fryshuset, Lugna Gatan, Polisen Rinkeby, Stockholms Brandförsvar, Svenska Kyrkan, Kista träff, Smarteyes, Folksam and Spalding.