A range of IHF educational materials will be boosted by new video content following a filming project in Cairo in early February. Several IHF experts managed the filming in Hassan Moustafa Sports Hall, which will provide materials for the IHF Education Centre and a number of IHF projects, mainly concerning children’s handball and Handball @ School, but also relevant to other areas such as the D and C licence courses. The filming took place over eight days, with boys and girls aged from 8 to 13 participating. 

A key element of the project in Cairo was the filming of methodical materials regarding how to organise competitions for children, such as indoor and outdoor festivals and mini handball tournaments. For this reason, a children’s handball festival was held during the week in order to instructionally showcase each organisational step from the beginning to the end. 

“We organised it once completely as we suggest, from the organisation to the setup and coaches meeting to the mini handball games on three fields. This resulted in a nice educational film,” said IHF Commission of Coaching and Methods chair Dietrich Späte, who was on site for the filming. 

In addition, content was filmed for many different IHF children’s handball materials, including for the second booklet in the IHF H@S series, Teaching handball, vol. 2: Games; for the next instalment of the IHF Youngters’ Training Diary; and for H@S expansion.  

The core content of the Teaching handball, vol. 2: Games booklet will be designed to help physical education teachers and coaches target handball practice for the most important technical and tactical skills. Children can learn these skills through the different games presented in the booklet, including lead-up games, small-sided games and partial game forms. 

Following on from the successful IHF Youngsters’ Training Diary, a new training diary entitled ‘First step’, is in the works. ‘First step’ will provide activities for young children to improve coordination with the ball, ball manipulation and other skills such as passing, catching and dribbling. 

The H@S materials filming focused on new content and promotion of an upcoming children’s game called ABC Cards, which will enable children to learn another language through handball. 

Regarding the IHF Education Centre, currently in the process of updates, the footage from Cairo will be featured in the training methods library. There will be video-based games and exercises that can be filtered according to specific age categories, with the focus initially on children’s handball and youth handball, but later to be expanded step by step. 

On site in Cairo alongside CCM chair Späte were IHF H@S Working Group chair Dr Ilona Hapkova and H@S Working Group member Dr Gerard Lasierra. The updated children’s handball materials were prepared with the additional cooperation of Working Group members Dr Nabeel Taha and Craig Rot. 

“A big thanks goes to the Egyptian Handball Federation and the Al Ahly Club. Without them, it would not have been possible,” said Späte. 

The next step will see the IHF experts preparing the recorded materials ready to be used for the various projects.