HER CHOICE introduces ‘korfball’ in Nepal to encourage boys and girls playing in one team!

For the first time, 30 people played korfball in Nepal. International Child Development Initiatives (ICDI) organized a training on Ducth ‘korfbal’ in Nepal within the HER CHOICE programme -creating child marriage-free communities. Korfball, invented at the beginning of the 20th century, is described as the only true mixed-gender ball game. The participants, both male and female, were staff, teachers and adolescent facilitators from Morang, Makwanpur, Banke, Kavre and Kathmandu districts. They will receive more training to become korfball instructors themselves and teach the game to their students and pupils.

Objective of the training is to introduce ‘korfbal’ in schools and adolescent empowerment centers in the HER CHOICE programme area. The game itself seems quite easy: players score by throwing the ball through the goal (“korf”) of the opposite team. But at a higher level it takes a lot of strategy and skills. The interesting part about is that you play it in mixed teams, with boys and girls together. Bringing adolescent girls and boys together in a sports team encourages them to collaborate in a team and play together.

The participants appreciated the rules of korfball. One of the participants: “Unlike other games, here the rules don’t allow snatching the ball and pushing each other which ultimately has less chances of creating violence during the game.” Another participant enjoyed Korfbal because “we have shown that boys and girls are different, but make a good team together.”