A sliding-doors moment changed Manny’s life. Now he wants to help others just like him

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In this special series, The Age focuses on Melbourne’s western suburbs to see how life could improve in Australia’s fastest-growing region.

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Inside a warehouse in a semi-industrial estate in Melbourne’s western suburbs, Emmanuel “Manny” Malou claps and bursts into a chuckle as he watches a teenage boy nail a basketball training drill.

“Oh my goodness,” Malou exclaims from the sidelines, clad in a pair of shiny silver and orange Nikes. I know nothing about basketball, but that dribble combo seems worthy of applause even to me.

Basketballer Emmanuel “Manny” Malou grew up in the western suburbs.

It’s a warm Saturday afternoon, and Malou, a professional basketball player, is training a small group of teenagers inside a gym in Sunshine West. Pop music blares from the speakers. A giant mural of Australian NBA champion Patty Mills adorns the back wall of the court. There’s banter, courtside chats and high-fives.

The free weekly, hour-long training sessions are part of an outreach initiative launched by Malou to show teenagers from disadvantaged backgrounds in Melbourne’s western suburbs that there’s more to look forward to in life than petty crime and gang culture.

“We kind of have a chat, whatever, and just go from there,” Malou said.

The Age is strengthening its focus on Melbourne’s booming west with a special series examining the positives and challenges the region faces. Later this week, our reporters will moderate a West of Melbourne Economic Development Alliance’s (WoMEDA) summit to discuss a vision for the western suburbs’ success.

Figures from the Crime Statistics Agency show crimes such as assaults and home invasions have soared in almost all parts of the west. The number of underage offenders caught committing crimes has also hit record levels in Wyndham, Hobsons Bay and Melton, areas where a large number of youth gang members are based. Youth workers have also noticed an escalation in offending, with young people getting charged with increasingly serious crimes.

Malou is no stranger to the issue. The son of South Sudanese refugees who resettled in Australia in the 1990s, he grew up in the western suburbs. Life was tough, money was scarce, and crime was everywhere.

Emmanuel Malou poses during the Adelaide 36ers NBL headshots session in 2021.

“A lot of my friends that I grew up with ended up going to jail. Some of them ended up dead, some of them using drugs and alcohol,” Malou said.

“Honestly, I lost a lot of friends due to just growing up in a certain area, and growing up with people that didn’t get the opportunities that I did.”

Malou said he could have easily gone down that path himself, if not for a chance encounter with an American coach, who stumbled upon a YouTube video of the then-14-year-old playing basketball and recognised the talent Australia had been overlooking. Malou, a quiet, basketball-obsessed teenager, saw in it an opportunity to make money and lift his mother out of poverty.

“I wasn’t getting an opportunity in Australia, and some random coach in America saw something in me and took me right away. I felt I was being overlooked because of my skin, to be fair with you,” Malou said.

It was the sliding doors moment that kick-started his professional career. Malou eventually moved to the US to attend a basketball program and went on to play internationally in Europe, Iran and Africa, including for South Sudan’s national team. He eventually landed back in Australia to play in the NBL. It was “a real hard grind”, but one that gave Malou purpose.

The 31-year-old decided to pause his career this year, struggling to sit idly by as young South Sudanese Australians continued to die in senseless violent attacks across Melbourne. It was then that the idea of starting his own outreach program was born.

In January, 24-year-old Lino Atem was stabbed to death after his friends were set upon by a group armed with knives in “attack-mode” at a park in Wyndham Vale. His death was almost two years to the day after his older brother, Atem Atem, 29, was shot dead outside the family home. Police later said there was nothing to suggest the attack on Lino was targeted.

In early September, friends Chol Achiek, 12, and Dau Akueng, 15, were killed in an ambush in Cobblebank. Chol was waiting for his mother to pick him up after basketball. Five boys and three men have been charged with murder.

Less than 24 hours later, 26-year-old Kwar Ater, who had previously been involved in a group focused on diverting children away from crime in the western suburbs, was shot dead on Elizabeth Street. Two men have been charged with murder over his death.

Malou believes a lot of criminality comes down to a lack of opportunities and cultural awareness.

“Many kids I mentor don’t end up getting that opportunity,” he said. “I go overseas and come back a couple of months later, and this kid is on the streets. This kid’s a gangster. This kid’s on the news. This kid’s in Cherry Creek [Youth Justice Centre].”

Malou wants to use the clout afforded by his professional basketball career to show teenagers in the west that everything is possible through hard work, discipline, and making the right decisions – whether that’s a career in sport or something else.

The 31-year-old hopes to open his own gym, so he doesn’t need to worry about having to pay fees to rent a court elsewhere, and is toying with the idea of bringing back a van service that used to offer video games and other forms of entertainment to teenagers out in the west.

Malou is also helping train the Longhorns, the South Sudanese basketball club in Sunshine he played for when he was a child, and is acting as an ambassador for Kowanj Australasia, a not-for-profit that provides education and employment support to African refugees and new migrants.

“Graduating, finishing, and playing professional basketball for 10 years now, I feel like it’s my duty to come back and reach back and help the other ones that haven’t really made it,” Malou said.

The West of Melbourne Summit, presented by WoMEDA with The Age, will be held on October 22-23. For details go to womeda.com.au