NRI Aman Mangat being honored by Health Mnister Sat Pal Gosain for giving free coaching to Punjab Youth
They say home is where the heart is. Driven by passion and give back to her roots, a 23-year-old Punjabi NRI girl from the US has taken it upon her to enhance and polish the skills of Punjabi youth in basketball.
Aman Mangat, daughter of Dr Harpal Singh and Dr Harminder Kaur, pursuing her MBBS at Washington DC in the US, arrived in India for the first time along with her parents last year. Her parents hail from Katani Klan village, situated 20km from here. Being an experienced basketball player a good, Aman has participated in school as well as inter-college basketball tournaments along with Women's national basketball association (WNBA).
During her visit last year, Aman visited the local Guru Nanak Stadium to have a session with the local youth.
During the visit, she was impressed with the skills and budding talent among Punjabi youth. However, she noticed that the players lacked technical expertise. It was then that Aman decided to visit the area for a month each year and impart free of cost training to the youth to help them hone their basketball skills. Her parents also supported her in the endeavour. Acting upon this, Aman secured a month's leave from her MBBS course and arrived in India on May 19 this year. She has started mentoring boys and girls in basketball and will stay till June 17.
In the span of her almost 3 weeks coaching, she got good cooperation from sportspersons who were also excited and impressed with her skills.
“Basketball is all about discipline, team spirit, work ethics and coordination“.
“It is sad that Punjabi youth are ruining their lives by taking to drugs.
“Punjabis, who are always eager to put anything at stake to reach the skies, can do wonders if they play basketball professionally in clubs in the US“, she said.
“The government should give equal weightage to the game like cricket. This will boost the morale of players here,“ she said. “The way Aman enhances our morale is commendable.
She is an inspiration,“ said 18year-old Rajwant Kaur.
Meanwhile, Aman was honoured by state health and family welfare minister Sat Pal Gosian for giving free coaching to Punjabi youth.
Related story: http://www.sikhnet.com/news/helping-hands-american-cager-trains-youngsters