Nina was born in 1975 in Södertälje, Sweden and she started playing basketball for the team of Södertälje SBBK at a young age.
Baresso played in different Swedish elite clubs but also for the Swedish national team and as a professional player in Spain’s highest league.
Nina have been the sports journalists’ favorite during many years and many articles were written about her.
She has always been a different basketball player and a different Assyrian.
Her successful career led to her differing from other Assyrians and her immigrant roots, that she always has been proud of, led to the fact that she never really felt like part of the group among her teammates in Sweden.
Nina had to fight against both Assyrian and Swedish prejudices, the Assyrian prejudice that a woman cannot be a professional basketball player and be a good wife and mother at the same time, and the Swedish prejudice that immigrants do not belong in the Swedish elite basketball.
During the career, Nina often had to show more than others that she deserves her place in the top. often came across obstacles, but the bad times got her to push herself even harder and be the best she could be. and finally showed Sweden that one can be an immigrant and still make it to the top and she showed her Assyrian community that one can be in the Swedish elite sports without having to deny his/her own culture and roots.
Nina Baresso is today a three time winner of the Swedish Championship in Basketball, a proud wife and mother, a role model for many teenagers.
. Ambassador of Södertälje
. Ambassador of Assyrians Without Borders.
. Ambassador of Loka Heroes