The corona pandemic also had a firm grip on the sports landscape and thus Play Handball last year. Hardly anything was possible on the playing fields, but in the background, things continued to swirl. With success. PlayHandball was able to enter into two new partnerships, which will help in the long term, especially in the context of training young coaches. Both the HVSH (Handballverband-Schleswig-Holstein) and the Lern Handball app could be won as partners

“PlayHandball and the Handball Association Schleswig-Holstein want to cooperate more closely in the future. The professional preparation of Weltwärts volunteers from Germany for their assignment in Africa, the training of PlayHandball coaches in South Africa and Kenya and the international youth encounter are central points of the partnership for us,” said Sascha Steltenkamp from HVSH.

About the partnership with the HVSH – Handballverband-Schleswig-Holstein:

The HVSH has supported PlayHandball (PH) already some time ago with the ball donation campaign. Thus, at the Owls Cup 2019, over 200 balls were collected for PlayHandball in South Africa and Kenya. Now the HVSH and PH have agreed to work even more closely together. At the end of November, Nicola Scholl, founder of PH, met with HVSH Vice President Youth Sascha Steltenkamp, Managing Director Sascha Zollinger and Teaching Director Sven Rusbült in an online meeting to discuss points of cooperation.

This concerns the following areas:

• Training of young volunteers who go abroad as part of the Weltwärts program, but also FSJlern who come to the HVSH in Germany for deployment. This is directly handled through the Youth Abroad Organization, which is based in Kiel and selects the volunteers as PlayHandball’s sending organization of the Weltwärts Federal Volunteer Service.
• Support for the education as handball coaches for trainers in the project countries in Africa. The first joint project will be a basic handball course for children, offered by PlayHandball in partnership with the HVSH.
• Development and implementation of innovative and internationally oriented youth projects. Goals: to promote youth, to provide intercultural understanding, to recruit and develop young people in Germany and Africa as handball coaches, to expand handball opportunities for children and youth, to create understanding and ideas on how handball can be used as a development tool to promote the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDG).

“I am very happy about the cooperation with the HVSH. The HVSH is very interested in promoting the youth and involving them more. This is also in line with our goals. We want to create perspectives for the youth in our African partner countries through innovative projects and exchange formats, with topics such as gender equality, environmental protection, inclusion and generally an intercultural understanding being the focus of these formats. Through the cooperation with the HVSH, I hope that we can further develop our training formats for young coaches, bring together young coaches from Germany and African Countries, promote exchange and understanding for each other and learn from each other,” says Nicola Scholl.

About the partnership with LearnHandball app

Learn Handball App is the perfect tool for all handball coaches – whether you are a beginner or an experienced coach. Learn Handball helps you to conduct exciting training sessions and to support the children in their development throughout the whole season. Everything is tailored to the age and level of the players you are coaching.

The collaboration between Learn Handball and PlayHandball is initially limited to one year. It includes free access for PlayHandball and its coaches to the app, behind which are also world-class players Andy Schmid and Bjarte Myrhol.

As a first step, teams in South Africa and Kenya will receive an introduction to using the app from Viktor Glatthard, one of the app’s co-founders. Afterwards, the goal is to gradually train the coaches of PlayHandball’s partner organizations in the app. Since many coaches of the partner organizations are just starting out and handball is far from being as well known as it is in Germany, the long-term goal is that the app will help junior coaches in Africa create training sessions and strengthen their knowledge base on drills and building training sessions.

“PlayHandball and Learn Handball fit together not only in name but also in values. We are very excited about the partnership. It will allow us to continue working towards our vision of giving every child in the world the same opportunities to experience fun and success with handball,” said Victor Glatthard, valuing the partnership.

Victor Sierro, PlayHandball coaching coordinator in Kenya, sees a great support for young coaches through the app: “Learn Handball is a great app for handball exercises since it has well planned exercises and it offers the ability to send the exercises to the players.To the young coaches in will be a great resource.”

“I am happy about this collaboration, as the Learn Handball app is an additional and professional tool for us to facilitate and strengthen our daily work. I hope that this will develop into a long-term cooperation,” said Nicola Scholl.

More info on the Learn Handball app at www.learnhandball.com