WNBA star Imani McGee-Stafford heads to Ghana

Impact Youth Foundation Ghana has announced they will be welcoming WNBA star, Imani McGee-Stafford to Ghana on the 16th of May with activities beginning 17th May.

Imani McGee’s visit to Ghana is part of a 7-day tour which will see her involved in the building of the Impact Lab Educational Center, student-athlete workshops and the launch of the 'She Shines' project aimed at promoting and increasing the participation of girls in basketball across the country. The launch will also include an All-Girls Basketball Clinic in Accra on the 22nd of May.

Imani McGee-Stafford is a 6-foot-7 American professional basketball player for the Dallas Wings in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA). She was drafted in the 2016 WNBA draft as the 10th overall pick in the first round by the Chicago Sky out of the University of Texas where she averaged 10.8 points, 8.2 rebounds, and 2.1 blocks per game.

Imani’s family has basketball running through their veins with her mother, Pamela McGee, a WNBA Hall of Fame and 7 feet big brother, Javale McGee a three-time NBA Champion who has played alongside Stephen Curry & Lebron James over the past four years.

Imani is also a writer, poet, and mental health advocate currently pursuing a law degree from the Southwestern Law School, in Los Angeles where she grew up. She already has a degree in Accounting from the University of Texas. Her sports career and inspirational life have been documented by ESPN, Player’s Tribune, Forbes, ABC Sports, Indiana Fever, Collegiate Women.

Imani will be hosted by Impact Youth Foundation, a registered sport for development NGO in Ghana using basketball to inspire, mentor, and develop the sports, educational, and leadership potential of the youth in Ghana especially for at-risk girls living in underserved communities.

Operating since 2009, Impact Youth has successfully kicked off an Impact Lab program based in Ayenya a small farming community in the Shai-Osudoku District of Accra, where they use basketball to inspire, mentor, and provide educational support, character and leadership training, and employment opportunities for young girls in the community. Impact Youth’s work was recently recognized by FIBA, the world’s governing body for basketball.