This is the story of how a group of Indonesian citizens living with and without disabilities come together to play wheelchair basketball.

I came to know about Jakarta Swift through Johanna Caroline who, together with another female player, Margo, is active in Swift, a mixed team of both male and female players from the Jakarta Metropolitan area.

Margo and Johanna recently participated in the Asia Oceania Zone (AOZ) Wheelchair Basketball Championship organized by the International Wheelchair Basketball Federation.

They were part of a “multi-nations” team, the so-called AOZ Team that, thanks to the bank Citi, the federation was able to put together for those players from nations not strong enough to compete on their own.

In this case, Johanna and Margo played with four team members from Nepal, two from Afghanistan and one from Bahrain.

I knew about wheelchair basketball in Indonesia because of the work being done by the Bali Sports Foundation which was created by Rodney Holt. I met Rodney personally and he has been a true champion of adaptive sports, not only wheelchair basketball but also wheelchair rugby, the latter a discipline he is now promoting all over the Asia Pacific.