Kaia Travilla will head Down Under after FIBA scholarship award

NMI National Women’s Basketball player and Northern Marianas Basketball Federation’s social media content coordinator Kaia Travilla was awarded the FIBA and ABC International Development Program-Women in News and Sport (WINS) social media scholarship after an eight-week program last June 12 and will head Down Under this September.

In Australia, she will be mentored and immersed in media operations, including social media content curation, and will participate in the FIBA 3×3 High Performance Development Program from Sept. 25-29. She will also join the regional WINS Alumni network and might be considered for additional learning and engagement opportunities offered in the future.

The eight-week program was coordinated online from April 10 to May 29.

It consisted of eight topics per week: social media landscape overview, social media integration and content creation essentials, a guest presenter, audience engagement and ethical considerations, social media marketing fundamentals, another guest presenter, personal branding, networking, and collaboration, and finally future trends and continuous learning.

The 20-year-old silver medalist of the NMI women’s basketball team in the 10th Micronesian Games at Marshall Islands, said that the program is a great way for her to be given the tools and resources she needs to learn about creating engaging content.

With that, she said, “I will be able to take what I learn and apply it in a way where the federation can promote basketball and the athletes in the CNMI.”

The Northern Marianas College business student said she heard about this program through the NMIBF who gave her the opportunity to participate in it.

As for how important and beneficial social media presence is for sports, she said, “Social media in sports is important as it opens up a bigger platform for promoting the presence of events, teams, and athletes; basketball In the CNMI will benefit from this. I look forward to learning about sports in [the] media and the experience I will gain from it.”

NMIBF president James Lee said for the federation, their objective is to grow the sport of basketball with modern technology. “We knew the best way to get the message out and grow the popularity aside from our local media partners is through social media. We needed someone that has a passion for basketball and also knows how to connect with the audience with social media and Kaia was perfect for the job. She has kept both our IG and FB page content up to date as far as connecting with the audience and has been quite creative at it as well.”

Aside from basketball, he said, “one of the things we have always emphasized is to provide opportunities to our athletes on the island so that they can see that there is more than just where they’re at—especially living at an isolated location such as ours. So this opportunity that FIBA has given her is great news for her as well as the NMI.”

According to FIBA, the WINS program includes mentoring participants through sports coverage and seeks to promote women in sport from elite to community levels and amplify women’s voices in sports coverage, inspiring women across the Pacific, and Asia to get involved in sports media.

WINS is coordinated by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s International Development Unit (ABCID) and is supported by the Australian Government through the Team Up program and builds on two previous phases since WINS began in 2016.