ISC, WTF team up for 'Sport for Better World'

A taekwondo demonstration is staged at the closing ceremony of the 2014 Incheon Asian Games on Oct. 4. / Korea Times

By Nam Hyun-woo

The World Taekwondo Federation and the International Sport Cooperation Center of Korea (ISC) will hold an international conference where sports figures will discuss sports’ role and developmental potential under the theme of “Sport for a Better World,” the federation said Friday.

The conference, dubbed the International Sport Cooperation Conference 2015, is slated for Oct. 26 at The Plaza hotel in central Seoul and will have some 250 attendees from the sports and academic fields, including World Taekwondo Federation President Choue Chung-won, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Korea Representative Dirk Hebecker and Olympafrica Executive Director Thierno Alassane Diack.

During the conference, participants will discuss about how a sport can contribute for the sustainable peace at a time when the migration crisis is one of the thorny issues that the world struggles with. According to the UNHCR, one in every 122 people is a refugee, internally displaced or seeking asylum and their combined population is as large as the world’s 24th biggest country.

The conference came on the heels of the field of sport gaining increased recognition for its possibility as a tool for development. The International Olympic Committee recently created the Public Affairs and Social Development through Sport Commission and the United Nation also launched of Sustainable Development Goals, which including sports as one of the main topics.

At the conference, Choue will deliver his keynote speech and will stress that the federation’s establishment of the Taekwondo Humanitarian Foundation would be an opportunity for the sport to offer the world an aid as a humanitarian asset.

The Taekwondo Humanitarian Foundation is the federation’s fresh initiative that Choue announced at the U.N. headquarters last month. According to the federation, the foundation will be launched at the end of this year to deploy taekwondo instructors as well as other types of supports to refugee camps around the world in a belief that the combat sport will not only keep them active but also contribute to humanitarianism.

Following Choue, Diack will review the history, mission and activities of Olympafrica, a non-profit organization dedicated to sport and development, while Hebecker will highlight UNHCR’s initiatives and the positive impact that a sport can have on refugees.

Also offering insights would be professors Kim Taek-yoon at Seoul National University and Ha Jae-pil at Gyeongsang National University. They will suggest how to utilize sports as a tool for development.

“The sport field has to raise consideration of social responsibility and ‘creating shared value’ philosophy,” said ISC President Lee Eun-cheol. “I hope this conference can be one of the contributing steps to make a better world through sport.”

The ISC obtained the IOC’s official support in 2013. This year’s conference will be led by Theresa Rah, a former spokesperson of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics Bid Committee.

Registration for the conference can be made online at: https://eng.isccenter.org/isc_conference.php.