What interested me about this sport is the way it is fast-paced. Players need to be agile and have good hand-eye co-ordination.
You must be able to use your hands to pass, catch and throw the ball, and you also need to know how to dribble and shoot.
Some of the benefits I have seen in this sport include travel opportunities, and allowance which help me pay my university fees.
Melvin Akinyi is one of the top performers in handball in the country. She turns out for national heavyweights Nairobi Water Queens. In 2009, Melvin travelled to Europe for the first time when her school, Mukumu Girls High School, participated in the Partille Cup in Sweden. She says she got a lot of experience and encouragement from that first international assignments. The graduate of economics from the University of Nairobi shares her life’s journey.
How did you get into handball? A local coach, the late Gabriel Kizito, came to our primary school in Makadara when I was in Grade Six and started a team called Jericho Youth Sports Association (JYSA). He recruited players from primary schools around Makadara and Jericho estates in Nairobi. I immediately joined with my friends, just for fun. That was the first team sport I ever became part of. I was quite young and did not know what handball was all about. To me it was just a fun way of spending time with my friends.
