Sarah Chan, the Sudanese basketball player recruiting for an NBA franchise in Africa

Sarah Chan is a basketball player and a scout for « Toronto Raptors », an NBA franchise. Through her NGO, “Home at Home”, the Sudanese woman also advocates against child marriage and promotes education and sport.

For several years, Sarah Chan played basketball at the wing position, notably within the United States University (USIU) team, where she scored 1892 points in 4 seasons. The Sudanese was also able to participate in the trials of the Indiana Fever, a franchise of the Women’s national Basketball Association and subsequently played in Spain, Portugal, Tunisia, Angola and Mozambique.

It was in Kenya, where she immigrated with her parents in 1998, that she had the opportunity to discover and practice sport. She quickly excelled in basketball at Laiser Hill High School. In 2007, she flew to the USA on a basketball scholarship from Union University in Jackson, Tennessee. She studied political science and history and took part in the university’s National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) program.

From player to coach and scout

In 2017, while she was one of the basketball coaches at the Giants of Africa camps, an institution that organizes basketball camps for girls and boys across Africa, she was spotted by the president of « the Raptors of Toronto », a subsidiary of the NBA. He hired her as a scout, with the mission of traveling across Africa to discover talents for the team. She became one of the first women in Africa to hold this position. She also works to give African girls the opportunity to play basketball.

In addition to her basketball career, Sarah Chan also campaigns against child marriage, gender equality, education and sport through her foundation “Home at Home”.

In 2022, she was named in the BBC 100 Women ranking.