Angola’s Formigas basketball school: shaping kids for life

Hard-working like the ants they’re named after, Angola’s Formigas do Cazenga are a basketball team and school preparing inner-city kids in Luanda for a better life. One of their star players, Sara Caetano, has gone on to the Tony Parker Adéquat Academy in Lyon, France. Parker, a veteran NBA star, says he aims to find more players like Sara in Angola and beyond.

The "Formigas do Cazenga" sports school has been transforming the dreams of a community in Luanda for 20 years. It's a dream from humble beginnings, with a lot of hard work and determination.

That's why they're called the Formigas “the ants” of Cazenga. Coach Eduardo Fonseca founded the basketball club 20 years ago.

“It is due to how ants organise - the workforce, the will, humility and how they never stop working, are always focused, even the younger ones,” he says.

Over those two decades, the Formigas, based in Luanda's most densely populated municipality, Cazenga, have taken in thousands of Angolan kids to teach them basketball, and much more.

“It has to do, first, with education,” says Cazenga. “It is to create, give moral, ethical, cultural values ​​to our young people and learn to educate, respect and be organised and be persistent in life.”

One of the Formigas' star players is Sara Caetano.

“From the beginning, when I started, they showed that they are not just coaches or colleagues, they show that they are parents, and that I have sisters here that I can count on,” she says.

You can count on help and hard work here: key qualities of the Formigas, on-court and off.

“I learned a lot, not only as a player, but also as a person,” says Sara. “I learned that in sport, in life, you have to be kind, you have to be respectful to people, not only on the field, off the field