New korfball coaches in Malawi

Daniël De Rudder, former Belgian Coach, and Willemijn Assink, working for the Spirit of Sport Foundation, visited Malawi from 7 – 17 February 2008 to continue the promotion and development of Korfball in ‘the warm heart of Africa’. This programme is supported by ICCO and was well prepared by the Malawi Korfball Federation.

Daniël conducted two IKF level 1 coaching courses in cooperation with Willemijn, while she also researched the changes for promoting and developing Korfball and sport in generally.

They have been working in the Northern and Southern part of this friendly country: Mzuzu and Blantyre. In both locations 18 enthusiastic participants attended the 5-days course.

During the didactical part of the course the Malawian candidates were working in local schools to coach and educate the children. In a township school in Blantyre, more than 500 very enthusiastic children came in contact with our sport for the first time.

On both places the media was present to report about this new mixed sport. For the first time in history, Korfball was on the Malawian Television. The Daily Times and the Nation, the two most important newspapers, also paid some attention to the korfball development in their country, as well as Radio Zodiac.

At this moment korfball is being played in all three regions of Malawi. Because it’s introduced through whole the country the Malawi Korfball Federation (MKF) will be supported by the National Sports Council. Right now korfball is a recognized sport in Malawi! During this trip, a plan was developed for promoting korfball in the near future. Some important actions are:

- Introduce the Korfball activities in schools and start a school competition;

- Increasing the number of Korfball clubs;

- Develop a local and national league (also used for talent identification for the national team);

- Further education of korfball coaches and referees;

- Clublinking with European clubs (for sharing information, equipment and finances).

- Participation on the Commonwealth Games 2008;

- Fundraising activities.

There are plans and possibilities to install a National Korfball Centre in Blantyre, land has already been given by the government. Unfortunately MKF doesn’t have the finances itself to build this accommodation. At this moment there are not even enough finances and equipment to expand korfball through the whole country, so this is quite a challenge for them. Right now they’re looking for a way to make the ‘korfs’ themselves from steal or by local weavers.

Daniël and Willemijn were very satisfied about their wonderful mission and are sure that Korfball will grow in Malawi, with the necessary feed-back and support, to a full Korfball nation.