Key facts
- The project focuses on introducing young children to handball and providing a path to continue involvement in the sport through enjoyment of playing and watching handball, as well as other roles
- Handball in Kindergartens project launched at beginning of 2023 and mini handball project concentrated on primary schools started with the 2023/24 school year
- Hundreds of children aged four to six years have been introduced to handball in partnership with clubs and kindergartens in six cities, with 26 groups so far, and preliminary meetings have been held with a further 30 cities and clubs under the Handball in Kindergartens project
- Mini handball has been introduced in 10 primary schools
Creation of the concept
The Seven Players for the Future concept includes several areas that the Croatian Handball Federation (HRS (Hrvatski rukometni savez)) has undeniably mastered, for example, the hosting of major championships under the ‘Highlight events’ pillar. For their part in the Master Plan, HRS looked to what they were missing.
“Handball is the most popular indoor sport in Croatia and so far the Croatian Handball Federation have covered all areas from mini handball in clubs to senior handball. Analysing the situation in handball grassroots, we saw that an increasing number of sports are turning to work with children in kindergartens, and we as a sport did not have a programme to offer our youngest so that we could connect them with handball from the earliest days,” says programme leader Lidija Bojić-Ćaćić.
“That’s how the idea was born to start VRTKO — Handball in Kindergartens — and to be the first sport in Croatia that started animation activities in kindergartens from the level of the national federation. Likewise, in the Master Plan, mini handball is planned in 870 elementary schools in Croatia, and we are launching this project at the beginning of the 2023/24 school year. In this way, all participants in handball in kindergartens will be able, when they enter primary school and start first grade, to continue playing mini handball and stay in handball in the long term. The goal is to create the largest possible pool of children who are not only training and playing handball but are regular attendees of handball matches with their parents, who follow the players when they go out on the court, help in the organisation of matches, and are fans of handball.
“We need to enable everyone from one to 100 years of age to find their place in handball. We want to show that everyone is welcome to handball and to help handball remain the most popular indoor sport in Europe.”
Successful project launch to begin 2023
The EHF and HRS signed the Master Plan Cooperation Agreement in September 2022. By March 2023, the support of the Croatian Olympic Committee had been obtained, the EHF had delivered sports equipment for both kindergarten and mini handball and the pilot project to introduce handball in six kindergartens in different cities had begun.
Bjelovar, Virovitica, Porec, Pakrac, Koprivnica and Zagreb were the six cities in which different clubs worked in cooperation with the HRS to begin the Handball in Kindergartens project. These cities offer strong handball tradition and therefore sound infrastructure for training possibilities in clubs and schools.
“We are the first national federation to get permission to access kindergarten children and introduce them to the handball programme,” says Bojić-Ćaćić. “The project officially started on 15th December 2022, when the equipment was distributed in all six cities, whereas the actual implementation of the project began on 1st January 2023. No issues have been observed so far, nor do we expect any, in the implementation of the programme. The interest of children, parents, kindergartens and respective authorities is extremely high as well as the media support we are receiving from all institutions.”
Following the improvement of training venues on the part of HRS, children aged four to six years were able to attend two training sessions per week. The programme was approved by the Ministry of Science and Education and, by the end of the first quarter of 2023, 186 coaches/teachers were educated via a one-month online education programme.
Even more notable is the number of children participating — by the end of March 2023, 365 kids had taken part in activities under the Handball in Kindergartens project, compared with the planned 150, highlighting the significant interest in Croatia on the part of educators, parents and children alike.
“As before the beginning of any new project, we could not define some things, such as whether cities and clubs will be interested in signing up for the project, whether parents will accept our project, and whether educators and coaches will show interest in participating in the project. However, already after the completion of the education for introducing handball in kindergartens, in which 155 educators and coaches participated in December 2022, we saw that the interest in this project exceeded our expectations and that we had hit the target group and caused exceptional interest throughout Croatia,” says Bojić-Ćaćić.
To help facilitate the grassroots programme, HRS also introduced the website VRTKO. The website serves as an online base for all news and event information surrounding the Handball in Kindergartens project. In addition, video teaching material was produced and made available to other federations with kindergarten projects under the Master Plan.
“In accordance with the stipulations of the signed Master Plan contract with EHF, one of the tasks was to educate educators and trainers for the implementation of the programme. The working group of HRS Handball in Kindergartens, which was formed from experts who worked with children aged four to seven years, together with neuroscientist Ranko Rajović, PhD, designed an online education lasting 22 hours embracing over 100 handball-like exercise,” explains Bojić-Ćaćić.
“The exercises are divided into specific areas: the introductory part of the training session, the main part and the final part of the training session.
“One of the goals of the video material is to help all the federations that have an idea, but do not have enough resources to develop the project handball in kindergartens.”
The video material created by the HRS is available for interested parties by contacting the EHF.
Progress leaps in 2023
The HRS programmes achieved success beyond what was hoped for in the first quarter of implementation, and the projects have developed significantly further in the months since the end-of-quarter report in March 2023.
“The plan for the beginning of the project was to include 150 children, i.e., 25 children per kindergarten — a total of 150 children in six kindergartens — because we did not want to be unrealistic in our expectations. But already in January there were twice as many — 315 participants,” says Bojić-Ćaćić, outlining how every month the count is up to 10% new participants.
“The interest in participation is great, and we believe that in some cities the project will be extended to new, larger kindergartens with a significantly higher number of children included.”
Not only do HRS expect many more children to join the project in the future, but the programmes will continue expanding to other cities in Croatia. The goal is to add six new cities each year.
“HRS signs an agreement with clubs and cities, so that the realisation of the project is guaranteed. Namely, the kindergartens are owned by the cities, and we need their permission and support to reach the children, whereas the handball clubs are responsible for the implementation of the project with their professional coaches who have completed online education for working in kindergartens,” says Bojić-Ćaćić.
“To date, we have held preliminary meetings with over 30 cities and clubs, so we can conclude that the project Handball in Kindergartens is a big hit in Croatia.”
