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Ellina Mhlanga
Senior Sports Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Handball Federation are scheduled to hold their strategic meeting on January 15 to map the way forward, for the next four years.
The meeting is set to take place in Harare with all the local handball stakeholders attending. ZHF secretary-general, Edson Chirowodza, said they are re-engaging handball stakeholders to come up with a strategic plan that will guide them for the next four years.
“The strategic plan is for four years, it takes the Olympic Cycle.
“Basically we are not starting something new, we are reviewing the one which was already there. So, basically, it’s now re-engaging our stakeholders in terms of their contribution and also what they envision and what they want in future.
“So, we are reviewing the goals and also working towards accomplishing those goals.
“As an Olympic sport organisation, we want to see ourselves fitting with the Zimbabwe Olympic Committee’s strategic plan. So, it’s re-aligning and reviewing. The previous one was running up to 2021,” added Chirowodza.
Some of the major areas the previous strategic plan focused on included improving the administration of handball in the country.
And as part of efforts to achieve that goal, the federation embarked on a mission to establish functional structures in all provinces. Out of the 10 provinces, three are yet to complete the process.
“We had four major pillars – administration where we were looking at improving our governance and setting up of structures, commissions that is marketing, referees, coaches and then making sure that we have functional committees in provinces. We were also looking at compliance issues.
“We are well structured in terms of (most) of our provinces… We have three provinces still outstanding, Mashonaland West, Bulawayo and Matabeleland South, they will have their elections this coming year.
“But there are structures composed of district structures, so elections are for provincial committees.
“The second pillar was the technical structures issue, whereby we were looking forward to improve, encourage and assist formation of technical structures from district to national level and also organising competitions,” said Chirowodza. It also focused on the development of the sport from the grassroots and this should be an ongoing process to ensure local teams are able to compete and get positive results starting with regional and continental competitions.
“We also focused on development of handball from grassroots to elite through our technical committee through workshops. And then the fourth pillar we focused on finance…establishing marketing and fundraising committee for resource mobilisation. The committee also came with financial policies.
“Basically these were the major pillars and now we are reviewing that. And we invite our stakeholders from provinces and corporates for the strategic meeting to share ideas on the possible way forward to develop the sport,” said Chirowodza. Some of the topical issues that are likely to be part of the plan include the vision 2026 project aimed at establishing a strong women’s handball team.
The selection process for the team has already begun with the assistance of Swiss coach Rolf Haussener. They have a similar project for the men’s team that is running until 2024.
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