About Us

The Netball Development Trust (NDT) is a charity registered in the UK and based in London. We are a netball coaching programme that is active at the grass roots level in some of the least developed regions of the world. Our aim is to introduce the game of netball to boys and girls who lack access to sports facilities, opportunities, kit and equipment.
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Each year a NDT tour party visits schools in these regions to deliver a coaching programme to primary school children with the assistance of local in-country volunteers, teachers, players and older students. These local volunteers join our international volunteers during tour time and then ensure the programme’s continuation through the year by arranging matches, training sessions and tournaments for the children.

Depending on the needs of the community, we will then work with local partners to deliver ‘sexual and reproductive health’ solutions.

Our History

The Trust was founded by Monica Thandi in 2010. A netballer since the age of 12, she plays for Ilford NC in London and has played at various levels throughout her playing career.

Monica first thought of creating NDT during her 2009 visit to Uganda as a volunteer for the Tag Rugby Trust. She was coaching at the Army Boarding school, where the children often don’t leave the compound for months on end, if ever. One afternoon, after her rugby coaching sessions, she saw some girls playing netball with an old battered ball. Her instincts took over and she went to chat to them and to play. This then became a daily activity and Monica spent as much time with the netball girls as she did coaching tag! On returning home after that tour she was determined to go back the year after with netball volunteers and launch a similar programme.

This she did! The trust has now been regularly touring since 2012

​Check out each country’s pages for more information on our successes there.

Our Beliefs and Aims

We strongly believe in coaching mixed gender netball. Boys and girls should grow up knowing they are equal. In many countries the opportunities are not equal so we do our bit to encourage them to play and learn together. We want to develop leaders of the future. Our future coaches and officials may just be youngsters now.

​We encourage them to learn the skills of coaching and umpiring, as well as tournament organization, and to join in with our tour. The future is in their hands.
We want to enable the children we work with to develop leadership, teamwork, fun, fitness and all the health benefits associated with learning a new sport.

Our Future

NDT has grown from strength to strength and today, after seven years of successful tours, no fewer than 10000 girls and boys have taken part in the programme and play netball regularly in Uganda, India, Pakistan, Ghana and Kenya. We’re very proud of this achievement. We’ve got lots of plans for the future that include:
  • New countries - we believe in establishing the programme in countries before moving on, so this will take time, but we will grow
  • Work with partners to deliver sexual health messages - we will enhance our sexual health programmes, working with new organisations, encouraging more children
  • Formal qualifications for our coaches and officials - working with INF and the national federations
  • New builds - permanent courts, buildings, classrooms
We kindly ask that donations being made not be sent using a credit card - thank you.