Lee Hae-rin is a City Desk reporter at The Korea Times, covering social issues, tourism and taekwondo. She is passionate about speaking up for the rights of minorities, including women, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities and animals as well as discovering the latest makgeolli trend in town. Feel free to reach her at lhr@koreatimes.co.kr.
Taekwondo education kicks off at Um Hong Gil Human School in Nepal
Students at Birethanti Secondary School in Nepal's second-most-populous city of Pohkara learn taekwondo on the school field. World Taekwondo and the Asia Development Foundation launched a one-year taekwondo education program here on Aug. 22. Courtesy of World Taekwondo
By Lee Hae-rin
By Lee Hae-rin
World Taekwondo (WT) and the Asia Development Foundation (ADF) will provide taekwondo and Korean language education to youngsters at a school established by mountaineer Um Hong-gil's foundation in Nepal.
The one-year program started on Aug. 22 at Birethanti Secondary School in the Annapurna trekking area, which is a two-hour drive from the country's tourism hotspot of Pokhara.
The school is the fourth among the 16 human schools established by the Um Hong Gil Human Foundation. It was completed in February 2013 and educates nearly 230 students in the Himalayan region.
A total of 87 students here have volunteered to receive 90 minutes of lessons in taekwondo and Korean language after school four times a week taught by instructors from the Nepal Taekwondo Association.
The opening ceremony will take place on Sept. 23 with WT President Choue Chung-won and mountaineer Um Hong-gil.
Since 2016, WT has been running its Cares Program to empower the socially vulnerable in developing nations through taekwondo and Korean language education. Under the mission of Taekwondo for All and World Peace through Taekwondo, it helps orphans, prison inmates, alcohol and drug addicts and impoverished children around the globe.
The organization signed a memorandum of understanding with the ADF in 2019 and has carried out the WT-ADF Cares Program in Nepal, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan and Timor-Leste.
It plans to start another taekwondo program in Afghanistan this year and expand the project to other human schools through the Um Hong Gil Foundation in the Himalayas as well.