Kazakhstan, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Portugal, Iran and Samoa have been selected as this year’s FIH Youth Challenge prize winners.They included the global theme “It’s All in the Game” in an exceptional way in their activities.
Kazakhstan was active in 5 different centres. The Youth Development Committee of the KHF, in co-operation with the regional associations organized skill competitions, mini games and 11 vs.11 in all 5 centres. In Almaty a big event was staged with the aim to reach a lot of people. Friends from other sports, former Olympians and international players were invited to join the “All in the Game” event. Four hundred students from several schools enjoyed mini games, a skills demo from the international players and a musical show. All participants received certificates and medals at the end. The event was covered on national and local TV and culminated in July with the youth national hockey championships.
Kenya invited around 100 students in the age group 10-18 for a weekend at the City Park Hockey in Nairobi. The weekend programme included team building activities, technical work on skills and the basics of the game, mini hockey, rules awareness and fitness.The aim was to encourage more youth to play hockey and to raise their basic skills. The event was organized by the Kenya Hockey Coaching & Development Committee. During the month of August the KHU hosted a holiday camp, as follow up on the Youth Challenge activities.
Sri Lanka addressed almost ALL aspects of the game in their Youth Challenge event. At the Wesley College in Colombo 200 boys and girls in the age group 13-15 joined an umpiring course (conducted by an international umpire), a coaching course (conducted by the national coaches) and an administration workshop (conducted by the SHF Chair of the DCC). After learning it was time for practising in the mini hockey tournament, in which 10 boys and 8 girls’ teams participated. The tournament was organized by the young participants on the administration course and umpired by the young referees who attended the umpiring course. At the awarding ceremony the prizes were presented by the President and Secretary of the HF. Local TV and media were present at the Youth Challenge. In future more youth tournaments and development workshops for young people are planned.
Portugal organized its Youth Challenge in Lisbon and Lousada. More than 250 school children were invited to join 3-, 4- and 7-a-side matches in the age groups U12, U14 and U16. Also some fun games were on the programme, like “tackle box”, “no tackling”, “dog and bone”, “draw your flag” and “treasure hunting”. Young referees umpired the games in Lousada and gained lots of experience. The Youth Challenge event was only the start of a range of activities. An official visit by the PHF was made to all participating schools, to ask for feedback and to reinforce the relationship for the coming years. PHF will continue to invest in club-school links and will keep staging national schools competitions. Regional competitions will be organized leading up to the national finals.
Iran organized its event in the Hammedan Indoor Stadium. Indoor games, small games and magic tricks were on the programme. The aim of the event was to develop and introduce hockey to youth and their parents. After the prize ceremony a Parents Panel was formed, which will be actively involved in the development of hockey. Local TV and media covered the event. A monthly regional training is planned as follow up.
Samoa organized its activities in the Fale’ata Park. It started on Saturday 15 May with the Cadets 5-12 year old programme. Hockey was also introduced to 5 secondary schools and to specific villages and named the Village Hockey programme. The Samoa Daily Papers did not only cover this event, but puts regular hockey reports for the attention of its readers. A full programme is designed as follow up: secondary school hockey development, training of teachers, writing resources (with the assistance of the CDO), and Village hockey and in 2011 the first national secondary school tournament will be organized.
Anne Ellis, DCC Chair, states: it is encouraging to see how these countries have implemented this year’s theme. Some focussed on “ALL” in the game, being accessible for all people. Others interpreted “ALL” as all aspects of the game as Sri Lanka did brilliantly.
All participating NAs focussed on “GAMES”, using appropriate game formats for different age groups. Congratulation to the winning countries and to the 37 participating nations, who have used this year’s Youth Challenge to promote the sport in their country.
The winners of the “All in the Game” Youth Challenge will receive a stick package of 100 sticks. The three countries who managed to get lots of media coverage: Nigeria, New Zealand and Bangladesh will receive a digital camera, kindly sponsored by FUJI. This camera will help them to keep feeding the press with colorful youth pictures in the upcoming years.
Next year's Youth Challenge will be held on 14-15 May 2011 and the theme will be around coaching. The exact title of the event will be announced late 2010.
NA reports and pictures of the FIH Youth Challenge can be found on the FIH Youth website: www.fihockey.org/youth.
For further information contact:
Gabrielle van Doorn
FIH Development Manager
Email: fihdevelopment@planet.nl
Tel. +31 6 38 31 91 01
