Stelios, a 14-year-old pupil at Special Elementary School of Perama, in Piraeus, Greece, is a great example of a One Team success story.

Stelios succeeds with One Team and Olympiacos

One Team, Euroleague Basketball's social responsibility program, has finished another season of supporting vulnerable people in our communities all over Europe. Stelios was one of this year's six new participants in the Olympiacos Piraeus One Team program.

Penny Giovanovits, the Events & CSR Manager for Olympiacos, takes up the story:

"When we first saw Stelios, his body language showed that he lacked self-confidence and was insecure in a new environment. As well as epilepsy and mental retardation, he suffers from vision problems that made him feel insecure away from his school. But we saw that Stelios is a person with a big will; he likes to push himself hard and make great efforts until he succeeds.

"One Team gave him the chance to play safely on a real, big basketball court. Very quickly he felt comfortable with our drills, showing his strong character with every new effort he had to make. He completes all the practices with no complaints and in the last session he became our hero. We were in an open court under the hot sun, and it was so difficult for him to score…but he never stopped. We were asking him if he wanted some rest, but he said: 'No way!'

"Most of his shots were too close to the basket, but he listened to our instructions, used some techniques he had learned. The One Team coaches were saying, 'Stelios, you know that you will stay here until you score, no matter how long it will be, right?!' He was laughing and he continued shooting until he finally scored! Even then it was not enough for him, so he continued trying, and scored again! His happiness was something we can't describe. He was so happy, and when we were walking all together outside, he started talking and sharing stories. It was a very sweet moment."

As well as learning how to make basketball shots, Stelios has taken many great personal steps during his One Team sessions. He has improved his personal relationships and his interaction with his parents, friends, teachers and social workers. He is working positively on a daily basis, and his social worker has added basketball into his routine. Sports, and particularly basketball, has been a vehicle for Stelios to communicate better and feel happier.

One Team, supported by Turkish Airlines as the One Team Founding Patron and with the collaboration of Special Olympics as Proud Partner, uses basketball to achieve meaningful social impact in our communities across Europe and is supported by every club in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague and 7DAYS EuroCup.

Since its founding in 2012, the One Team program has already helped more than 22,000 participants through its various team-focused projects.



Euroleague Basketball's efforts to support our communities are boosted at every club in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague and the 7DAYS EuroCup by an official One Team Ambassador – a player who works directly with the program to help vulnerable people in tough situations.

Waczynski family shines for One Team with Unicaja

At Unicaja Malaga, though, Polish scoring ace Adam Waczynski has gone a step further by not only giving his own time to support One Team, but also making sure that his whole family gets involved.

Throughout the season, Unicaja held regular online meetings with Down Malaga, a local association founded 20 years ago by a group of parents whose children have Downs Syndrome with the objective of improving their quality of life and giving them more independence. The program saw 20 participants, aged 19-61, join weekly sessions to learn different life skills through specially designed basketball-based drills.

Many of those sessions were attended by Waczynski, who became a great motivator for the group and made a great impact on the participants, even more so when he was joined by his wife Natalia – who also played in the women's Euroleague and with the Polish Under-20 national team – and their children Julia and Aleks.

Unicaja's One Team Manager Jose Carlos Gaspar said: "This season has been very special. We have all experienced moments that are difficult to describe. In these times you most value the people who help others to feel better and overcome adversity. For this reason, I give even more value to all the help that Adam and his family have given us. I especially thank them for what they have done with a group of young people from Down Malaga, who have appreciated the effort of the Waczynski family and themselves served as an example for the whole society, transmitting respect and caution always. Thank you, team."

Waczynski added: "Being an ambassador of One Team is a big honour for me and my family. We feel this is very important for society, to help them feel better and show that we are all equal. They are amazing people who deserve help and support like no one else in the world. I love to help people in many ways, I love to make them smile. My wife and kids are like me – they love to help, which is why they identify with the program and they do as much as they can."

One Team, supported by Turkish Airlines as the One Team Founding Patron and with the collaboration of Special Olympics as Proud Partner, uses basketball to achieve meaningful social impact in our communities across Europe and is supported by every club in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague and 7DAYS EuroCup.

Since its founding in 2012, the One Team program has already helped more than 22,000 participants through its various team-focused projects.

On World Environment Day, Euroleague Basketball is pleased to announce it has reached its target of collecting funds to plant more than 6,000 trees.

Euroleague Basketball, One Tree Planted reforestation initiative target reached

Euroleague Basketball works with the One Tree Planted Amazon Rainforest initiative to help restore healthy forests for biodiversity and social impact.

By accomplishing the initial target with the support of fans and stakeholders, Euroleague Basketball and One Tree Planted will be able to:

* Create hundreds of direct jobs on reforestation days.
* Help the families of small farmers recover several hectares of degraded areas.
* Contribute to forest connectivity, restoring endemic wildlife habitat for bird nests and the production of nectar for bees.
* Combat climate change by storing large amounts of carbon.
* Help reduce the spread of future wildfires in the Amazon via appropriate restoration planning.
Everyone willing to participate in this project to help the reforestation of the Amazon Rainforest can continue to donate at [https://euroleague.raisely.com](http://euroleague.raisely.com) – it works as simply as €1 = 1 tree.

This was the first direct climate action in Euroleague Basketball's new sustainability plan for the next 10 years (2021-2030), which will see the competition and its clubs continue to work together as purpose-driven and socially responsible entities.

More projects will follow this first action as part of a bigger, integral plan aimed at making Euroleague Basketball an even more socially and environmentally committed organization aligned with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations 2030 agenda and the #GenerationRestoration movement. This will lead our clubs on a joint business sustainability approach by which the impacts will be able to be measured and challenges such as zero-waste operations and sustainable mobility around arenas will be tackled to help bring direct improvement to our communities.



One Tree Planted initiative closing

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As part of Euroleague Basketball's commitment to sustainability, last weekend's Final Four incorporated a number of environmental and social activities and initiatives.

Sustainability at the Final Four in Cologne

Three social entities in the host city of Cologne – Special Olympics Germany, Basket for Koeln and RBC Koeln 99ers – were given free access to EuroLeague TV to enjoy the event and were donated bicycles from Euroleague Basketball premium partner BKT and Spalding basketballs to promote healthy habits and lifestyles.

<div style="display: grid; place-items: center;"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">🙌🏀 Participants of the <a href="https://twitter.com/OTEuroleague?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@OTEuroleague</a> program reveal the <a href="https://twitter.com/FCBbasket?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@FCBbasket</a> players for tonight&#39;s semifinal.<br><br>💪 Cheers team!<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/For%C3%A7aBar%C3%A7a?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ForçaBarça</a> <a href="https://t.co/9qBbkQkJkp">pic.twitter.com/9qBbkQkJkp</a></p>&mdash; Barça Foundation (@FundacioFCB) <a href="https://twitter.com/FundacioFCB/status/1398225308067807232?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 28, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>

All staff members and accredited groups were given free access to public transportation, thanks to the City of Cologne, and to BKT bicycles during the event to cut down on motorized transport, and a recycling waste management system was activated in and around Lanxess Arena to collect paper, plastic, glass, organic and other waste separately thanks to the collaboration from the venue management and the City of Cologne. Non-plastic recyclable cutlery and crockery was provided along with zero-kilometer food and the game towels used by players were eco-certified.

<div style="display: grid; place-items: center;"><blockquote class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CPfkui9quqK/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="13" style=" background:#FFF; border:0; border-radius:3px; box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width:540px; min-width:326px; padding:0; width:99.375%; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 2px); width:calc(100% - 2px);"><div style="padding:16px;"> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CPfkui9quqK/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style=" background:#FFFFFF; line-height:0; padding:0 0; text-align:center; text-decoration:none; width:100%;" target="_blank"> <div style=" display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; 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One Team, as Euroleague Basketball's social responsibility flagship, was given a prominent place during the Final Four, with players wearing #WeAreAllOneTeam badges on their warmup sleeves in support of the program's pandemic recovery initiatives.

One Team participants were invited to take part in video messages of support for players during the team presentations before games and were given free access to EuroLeague TV as well to enjoy the full entertainment of the action from their homes. The values of One Team were also introduced to the Final Four volunteers with an online welcome session before the event.



<div style="display: grid; place-items: center;"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Our Roster for tonight introduced by <a href="https://twitter.com/OTEuroleague?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@OTEuroleague</a> guys! 💪🏼<br><br>Our first and sweetest supporters! ❤️<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/insieme?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#insieme</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WeAreAllOneTeam?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WeAreAllOneTeam</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/EuroLeague?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#EuroLeague</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/F4GLORY?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#F4GLORY</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FCBAXM?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FCBAXM</a><a href="https://twitter.com/EuroLeague?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@EuroLeague</a> <a href="https://t.co/tomlLBwZ1C">pic.twitter.com/tomlLBwZ1C</a></p>&mdash; Olimpia Milano (@OlimpiaMI1936) <a href="https://twitter.com/OlimpiaMI1936/status/1398179762431053825?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 28, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>

Looking further afield, and in support of the United Nations #GenerationRestoration movement, Euroleague Basketball launched a reforestation campaign in the Amazon rainforest with One Tree Planted, using all Final Four platforms to encourage fans to donate at [https://euroleague.raisely.com/](http://euroleague.raisely.com/) to reach the goal of €6,000 donated for the reforestation program by World Environment Day on June 5.

One Team welcomes Final Four volunteers

Zalgiris's Lauvergne, One Team stars discuss self-confidence

Finding motivation with Joffrey Lauvergne and One Team

Dolomiti Energia Trento has completed its activities for One Team, Euroleague Basketball's social responsibility program, with a recap session to summarize and celebrate all the lessons that have been learned over the past 11 weeks.

Trento has been working with a group of 18 young people from four separate local institutions. ANFFAS works with people with disabilities; ATAS with refugees and foreigners; CTS with people recovering or suffering from pathological addictions, substance abuse or psychiatric problems; and Villa Sant'Ignazio with people in personal or family difficulties.

Video sessions have been held every week to talk about basketball and the different life values the sport can offer, such as respect, self-esteem, and a sense of community. Those sessions have included the involvement of Trento players, including team captain Toto Forray, and an English teacher to improve language skills.



One of the participants, Antonio, explained that he truly appreciated the support offered by the program and the Trento players during a difficult time:

"We have discovered that all those players are also beautiful souls, with kind hearts. It's not an easy moment, but we have managed to meet like we were around a campfire: we warmed each other! It was a great experience, and we exchanged a lot of smiles. On the screen, there was always someone smiling. So, thank you. We really needed that, especially in this moment."

The group will now stay together and hold a couple of follow-up sessions in the coming weeks, hopefully including the chance to finally able to play together on the basketball court if the pandemic situation allows.

One Team, supported by Turkish Airlines as the One Team Founding Patron and with the collaboration of Special Olympics as Proud Partner, uses basketball to achieve meaningful social impact in our communities across Europe and is supported by every club in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague and 7DAYS EuroCup.

Since its founding in 2012, the One Team program has already helped more than 22,000 participants through its various team-focused projects.

Trento sharing smiles through One Team

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