Malaysia’s Nicol David Organisation Takes Its Sporting Mission Beyond the Court

What she wants to talk about is a shy eight-year-old learning to trust her own body, a father discovering pickleball with sixty other dads, or a girl with undiagnosed dyslexia who found her voice on a squash court.

That shift, from chasing titles to building a movement, is the story of the Nicol David Organisation (NDO), the foundation David co-founded with Mariana de Reyes, a former Colombian squash player turned CEO.

Established in Kuala Lumpur in 2022, NDO's community programmes have officially reached more than 2,700 people across Malaysia, though the founders themselves put the cumulative figure nearer 7,500 children touched across all of NDO's initiatives by the end of this year. The pair brought that story to New Zealand, hosted by the Asia New Zealand Foundation Te Whītau Tūhono, for a programme of engagements in Auckland and Wellington with sport, education and community leaders, to share their model and to bring lessons home.

A Promise Made Before Retirement

The idea for NDO was born long before David retired. "During that time I always knew that I wanted to give back to the next generation," she says of her playing years, "and have a positive future for children through sport and giving them the values that sport gave me." While training in Colombia near the end of her career, she reconnected with Mariana de Reyes, who had spent a decade in corporate structuring work after her own playing days, and asked her to leave her job and move to Malaysia. "That's where it all started."

Their first programme, Little Legends, offered squash training and English classes to children from low-income families in Kuala Lumpur, since Malaysia's literacy rates had slipped after COVID-19. Today the programme supports 180 children, evenly split between girls and boys.

But the founders quickly realised a child's progress couldn't be separated from their household. "The child grows up in the family household but we have to help the parents as well," David explains. That insight produced Mother Legend, a self-care, financial literacy and mental health programme now supporting 200 mothers, and, this year, Father Legends, believed to be one of very few father-focused programmes of its kind anywhere.

Sixty dads have joined so far, bonding over pickleball and stress-management workshops. "We sometimes always forget about the dads," David says, "but the dads are really in dire need of community and support as well."

Datuk Nicol David is a Malaysian squash icon whose record-breaking reign at world number one cemented her place among the greatest players the sport has ever produced. Photo: Wikipedia

Taking On a National Crisis

The organisation's most ambitious effort, Positive Play, moves beyond their own facility and into Malaysia's public schools, a response to what David calls "scary" statistics: one in five Malaysian children inactive, rising youth depression, and one in three children now overweight or obese. "We need to take action now," she says, "and hence why we are really focusing on mental health, because people don't correlate the both."

The programme pairs physical activity with positive psychology, teaching children gratitude, rational decision-making and breathing techniques alongside movement. Because NDO cannot physically reach all 10,000 schools in Malaysia, de Reyes built a "train-the-trainer" model: NDO delivers the four-week programme directly, then trains public school teachers to run it themselves. Last year, Positive Play reached 40 schools and 2,000 children. This year's target is 120 schools and 5,000 children.

Crucially, the duo didn't stop at good intentions. They partnered with a Malaysian university, with a Yale University public health master's student helping run the statistics, to measure outcomes across more than 3,000 children. "We ran all that model and we actually can prove statistically that in four weeks all these measurements improve," de Reyes says. A published research paper is due by December, aimed squarely at Malaysia's Ministry of Education, which has already backed the programme with approval letters to enter schools nationwide.

The pitch to policymakers is precise and modest: not a full year, but four classes. "Imagine, can impact five million children in Malaysia," de Reyes says. "That is the end goal."

Two Women Learning to Lead

Building an institution from nothing tested both women in ways competitive sport never had. "None of us had ever done this," de Reyes admits. NDO underwent two years of audits before qualifying for tax-exempt status in Malaysia, a rigorous bar de Reyes says forced discipline into everything the foundation does. "Every audit is clean. Everything has accountability, everything has good governance, transparency."

For David, stepping from athlete to public advocate meant learning to be vulnerable in a new arena. "Preparation was very key," she says. She credits her parents' unconditional encouragement growing up as the model she now tries to give every child in the programme: belief first, results second. "As long as you're a good person and be humble, people always remember you for that," she says.

Hosted by the Asia New Zealand Foundation Te Whītau Tūhono, Nicol David and Mariana de Reyes, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of NDO, for a programme of engagements with New Zealand sport, education and community leaders in Auckland and Wellington. Photo: Carla Teng-Westergaard/AMC.

New Zealand: Learning, and Being Seen

For David and de Reyes, the invitation to New Zealand carries a significance beyond the itinerary. For an organisation that is only four years old, having people from outside Malaysia seek it out for what it has learned feels like a milestone in itself.

“It's the first time... someone or a country from outside seeing that we are doing something good for our country,” David says.

The connection began with Kirsty Sharp, Sports Programme Manager at the Asia New Zealand Foundation. While putting together a 2025 sports delegation to Malaysia and Singapore, Sharp was advised by the New Zealand High Commission in Kuala Lumpur to visit NDO.

At the time, Sharp knew David's name, but not the full story behind the athlete.

“To be honest, I did not know a great deal about Nicol David beyond the fact that she had played squash,” Sharp says. “I quickly came to understand the scale of her achievements.”

David and de Reyes happened to be in Japan when the delegation arrived, so their young team stepped in, taking the visitors through NDO's programmes one morning while the founders joined online.

What Sharp saw was not simply the legacy of a world champion, but a young organisation with a clear purpose and an energetic team determined to make it work.

“What stood out immediately was the strength of the organisation's purpose and the energy of the people behind it,” she says.

The response from the delegation was immediate. Before they had even left the venue, delegates were already messaging colleagues back in New Zealand about what they had seen and how inspired they were by NDO's ambitions.

For Sharp, the visit also revealed something else: despite the distance between Malaysia and New Zealand, the two countries are grappling with some remarkably similar questions about the wellbeing of their young people.

“Malaysia, like New Zealand, is facing growing concerns about the physical and mental wellbeing of its younger generation,” Sharp says. “Although the two countries are separated by an ocean, they are dealing with very similar challenges.”

That first meeting planted the idea of bringing David and de Reyes to Aotearoa themselves.

Their return visit has been deliberately broad. Alongside the Wellington teachers' conference, they are meeting organisations across community and high-performance sport, including the Blues Charitable Trust, New Zealand Rugby League, the Steven Adams Pathway Trust and Sport New Zealand, as well as connecting with the Squash Foundation at an event hosted by Dame Susan Devoy.

For Sharp, however, the value of the visit is not measured by the number of meetings.

“The key outcome I am hoping for is network building and opportunities for them to share their work and exchange ideas with others delivering similar programmes around New Zealand,” she says.

“Plus recognition that they are doing amazing work.”

For David and de Reyes, the exchange is equally about listening.

They have been struck by how deeply physical activity is embedded in New Zealand's school and community culture, something Malaysia is still working to strengthen. But they also see lessons they can take home.

In Malaysia, NDO has learned that schools cannot carry the responsibility alone. Children spend much of their lives outside the classroom, making families an essential part of any effort to build healthier habits.

The hope is that the visit can turn that exchange of ideas into something more lasting: teacher exchanges, shared programmes, visits in both directions, and relationships between people working towards the same goal.

“The moment we connect with the same-minded people,” de Reyes says, “that's where collaborations work and connections start.”

The Nicol David Organisation (NDO) is a Malaysian non-profit that uses sport, education and holistic family support to help children build confidence, resilience and the skills to reach their full potential. Photo: NDO Facebook

What Winning Means Now

Perhaps the clearest measure of David's transformation from champion to advocate is the way she now describes a win.

During her squash career, winning meant performance. It meant preparation, improvement and pushing herself to become the best player she could be.

At NDO, the result looks very different.

“When it comes to the foundation and putting children in that place where they just have to focus on enjoying those moments, that is a win for me,” she says.

“To see them happy, to see them smiling, playing sport - that's definitely my win.”

One of NDO's most powerful examples is a girl who joined the programme four years ago unable to read and write properly, despite showing an extraordinary natural talent for squash.

Further screening identified dyslexia.

With NDO's support, she received one-on-one academic assistance while continuing to train. She later earned a scholarship to a private international school and rose into Malaysia's national under-13 rankings.

But even with her sporting potential, David and de Reyes refuse to define her success by what happens on court.

They are not trying to create another Nicol David. They want her to decide for herself what she wants to become.

An athlete, if that is what she chooses.

A doctor. An engineer. A nurse. An astronaut. The point is that she gets to choose.

NDO's five-year ambition is now to reach one million children.

It is a staggering target. But four years ago, when David and de Reyes sat over coffee imagining what their foundation might become, they were talking about reaching 10,000.

They are already at 7,500. The numbers matter because scale matters. But they are not what David remembers when she looks at the work.

She remembers the children.

The ones who once stood at the edge of the court, unsure whether they belonged.

The ones who learned to move without being afraid of getting it wrong.

The parents who found a community of their own.

The girl who discovered that struggling to read did not mean she was incapable.

And perhaps that is the most important thing David and de Reyes have learned about winning. The greatest achievement is not necessarily being the best in the world.

Sometimes, it is helping someone else believe they can become the best version of themselves.

-Asia Media Centre