Sharing kindness and volunteering 10,000km from home

Today, on 5 December, we celebrate International Volunteer Day by putting the spotlight on three volunteers who chose to travel across the ocean to take part in one of the biggest events in women’s handball.

Enrique Huerta, Patricia García and Héctor Garrido are part of the volunteer team in Debrecen and they will also offer their support for the final weekend in Vienna. What sets them apart from the others is the effort it took to get to Hungary — the three of them are from Mexico, but travelling roughly 10,000km was something they did wholeheartedly.

“We can say that handball is our life, so to have the chance to enjoy an event like this directly, maybe the highest event in the handball world, is everything to us,” says Huerta, who is a handball coach in his daily life. The sport is what brought all of them together, as García and Garrido met Huerta while playing handball in their teenage years.

With more volunteering experience under his belt — his first participation was at the Men’s EHF EURO 2022 — Huerta arrived in Debrecen eager to get in touch with all the organisational aspects of an international tournament.

“The idea was to come and learn more about what we have to do backstage, all the work that is behind the scenes, to come and try to pick up something about all areas,” Huerta explains.

He has been doing that for the last week, taking on responsibilities as a competition office assistant and making sure that the dressing rooms are well-prepared for the games, among other tasks.

His younger peers are diving even deeper into the event, carrying the flags in the opening ceremonies and mopping the floor during the matches — all duties as members of the competition management department. It’s not easy work, but being so close to the teams has been an invaluable reward.

“While mopping, it’s incredible to be very close to the big stars of European teams, five or six metres away,” explains Garrido, for whom this volunteering experience was an opportunity to visit Europe for the first time.

A teacher in her everyday life, García is also new to volunteering and has been enjoying the tournament to its fullest. Having a role in the frontline means getting exclusive insights, such as on what the atmosphere is like before a game or how the teams react during difficult times.

“When a team is not having a good day or is losing the game, they are especially cheering each other during those times, the players are trying to support their teammates. It does not matter if they miss a shot or a pass, they are always clapping and screaming to offer support,” reveals García. “You can feel and see that spirit that they want to be champions.”

Huerta has been working as a coach since 1999 and his ambition to improve his skills brought him to Hungary for the first time in 2018 on a scholarship. Now, he analyses the European Championship from three perspectives — as a volunteer, coach and fan.

“As a coach, you can see for example who are the first players going out to warm up and doing extra work before and after the game. When you see the performance of those players, they are playing better. It’s nice to see the extra commitment from some of them.”

After getting the chance to interact with some of the players, Huerta points out: “As a fan it’s great to be very close to a ‘rockstar’, it is totally different than on TV or computer. Seeing them alive, how strong they are and how fast they throw the ball, is totally different. In the end, they are also human beings, so it’s good to see that many of them are really nice, talk naturally and are very friendly and kind.”

A warm atmosphere can also be felt backstage, where the volunteers are united by their passion for the sport and their dedication to perform at the highest level. “All the volunteers are very relaxed, each with a different story, some of them with a lot of previous experience and some new, like us,” says Garrido.

However, working with colleagues who come from different backgrounds is not difficult and they always find the means to understand each other, which is something that García appreciates: “It doesn’t matter if you don’t speak English perfectly, there’s always a way to try and communicate.”

Volunteering is all about “knowledge, experience, feeling and sharing”, as Huerta emphasises, adding: “Our universal language is sports, handball, so it doesn’t matter if you don’t speak the same language, you can share kindness in many other different ways.”

The involvement in the tournament plays an important part in their professional development and they are looking forward to bringing to Mexico all the lessons they learned here. Back home, one of the biggest issues is the lack of handball's popularity, as the sport is still developing.

This is why last year they started organising a handball festival, which in the meantime has grown from 48 teams to 63. It is a group effort and the three volunteers can count on the help of other handball friends, but taking on such an initiative has its challenges, mainly regarding finding the proper resources. “We are getting a lot of ideas,” confesses Huerta, when talking about how the Women’s EHF EURO 2024 serves as a model for their own event.

When it comes to the teams they support, they have all expressed their admiration for the reigning champions Norway, while also confessing that Hungary have a special place in their heart. On their rest day, while getting a well-deserved break after an action-packed week, Huerta, García and Garrido were surprised by the Hungarian stars Viktória Gyori-Lukács, Gréta Márton and Petra Vamos, who expressed their gratitude for the volunteers’ hard work.

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Photos © EHF/kolektiff; Marcio Menino