Handball star: Friendships are more valuable than medals

The Hej Foundation, which works to combat bullying in sports, and the Greenland Handball Association TAAK are starting a collaboration.

Former Olympic handball champion for Denmark Josephine Touray spent several hours with Greenlandic children’s and youth coaches last week.

Top of the agenda was to create security in the handball environment in Greenland for children and young people.

A landmark case for the former star, who is now the director of the Hej Foundation in Denmark, which works to combat bullying in sports. Therefore, the many hours spent with the children in the hall were spent gathering knowledge and Greenlandic handball.

– Well-being means everything when you play sports, regardless of whether you are an U-11 or a national team player, says Josephine Touray to KNR.

– We can see from the Danish men’s national team how well they get along with each other, and that good well-being creates results. At the end of my career, the friendships I have made from playing handball are almost more important than the medals I have won, says Josephine Touray.

Adapted to Greenland

Now, together with her colleagues at the Hej Foundation, she will digest the impressions they have gathered during their stay in Nuuk and the meeting with the Greenlandic coaches. She also emphasizes that it will not be just the Hej Foundation that will set the program for combating bullying in handball in Greenland. The Mary Foundation is also focusing on precisely that.

The two foundations have collaborated to develop the ‘anti-bullying’ method, which coaches can use to avoid or reduce bullying in the handball community.

– There are a lot of exercises that should make it easy for coaches to work with well-being in handball. These are exercises that are without the ball and with the ball and a lot of small moves that can be used on and off the court to create well-being, says Josephine Touray.

– And there we must, in collaboration with the handball association and the local clubs, find out which of these exercises and methods are suitable for Greenlandic society and have some of it translated into Greenlandic.

– And we need to help train the coaches in using these exercises, so that training can be even more fun than it already is, says Josephine Touray.

The Hej Foundation’s ambassadors are also involved in the fight against bullying. These include Mikkel Hansen, Mathias Gidsel and Mie Højlund.