March will be celebrated all around the world as Gender Equality Month, with 8 March marking International Women’s Day (IWD), a date to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women around the world – and the International Handball Federation joins the celebration. 

As highlighted on the official IWD website, the theme for 2021 is #ChooseToChallenge, inviting all to challenge for a gender equal world, celebrating achievements and raising awareness against bias.

IWD sees a number of missions to help forge a gender equal world, with IHF strongly resonating with “applauding equality for women in sport.” 

Gender equality is also goal number five of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which was, for example, highlighted by IHF Partner’s hummel corporate social responsibility (CSR) programme, HAND – ‘Handball for A New Destiny’.

HAND believes passionately in the power of female inclusion in handball to change attitudes, lives and, ultimately, the world. A number of initiatives formed part of the launch with all directly related to contributing to United Nations development goal number five.

After the 2019 IHF Women’s World Championship in Japan, every Player of the Match had two full sets of handball kits and equipment donated in their name and at the 2021 IHF Men’s World Championship in Egypt, handball shoes were donated.

With 209 National Federations forming the IHF, women across the globe play, work or volunteer in handball every day. In line with our mission to continue growing women’s handball and promoting women in handball, the IHF is dedicating the month of March once again to women involved in handball, highlighting the importance of gender equality both on and off the court through various feature stories on ihf.info.