Good to go: the Taekwondo Humanitarian Foundation

World Taekwondo Federation President Choue Chung-won gives a keynote speech during the International Sport Cooperation Conference 2015 at The Plaza hotel in central Seoul, Monday. / Courtesy of World Taekwondo Federation

The following is an abstract of World Taekwondo Federation President Choue Chung-won’s keynote speech on the Taekwondo Humanitarian Foundation at the International Sport Cooperation Conference 2015 on Monday in Seoul. ― ED.

Respected guests; colleagues; and friends:

It is a great honor for me to be here to deliver a keynote speech. All of us here want peace. But the sad fact is that peace is not with us.

How can we, as sports officials, assist those who are victims of conflicts? This is what I want to present about today.

As you may know, under the leadership of President Thomas Bach, the International Olympic Committee has laid out its “Olympic Agenda 2020.”

Among other things, this calls for us ― the International Federations ― to fulfill our social responsibility.

The World Taekwondo Federation is doing exactly that.

I recently had the honor of addressing the U.N. Headquarters in New York on Sept. 21, the annual “U.N. International Day of Peace.”

For me this was a particularly personal honor, for it was my late father, Dr. Choue Young-seek, who first suggested that the U.N. celebrate such a day.

In these days of strife, his favorite saying comes back to me again and again. He said: “Peace is more precious than triumph.”

Although my father passed away three years ago, I am certain that he would support the initiative I revealed on the day that he named.

That new initiative is called “The Taekwondo Humanitarian Foundation.”

So what is it? And what does taekwondo offer the world as a humanitarian asset?

Now, if you have seen taekwondo, you may be asking yourself this: “Can a combat sport ― can a fighting art ― contribute to humanitarianism?”

That is a reasonable question and my answer is: “Yes, paradoxically ― it can.”

Like every sport, taekwondo is a forge of the body.

Modern sports, as they develop, require intellectual input ― and that makes taekwondo a forge of the mind, also.

And as a combat sport, courage is required to practice it ― which makes taekwondo a forge of the spirit.

Moreover, taekwondo is one of the most economical and most democratic sports on earth.

Because it requires virtually no equipment ― just the human body ― to practice it.

And because it requires no expensive playing fields or structures ― just space ― to do it.

I admit this: Taekwondo does not approach football, basketball or rugby in terms of popularity as a spectator sport.

But, taekwondo is one of the most popular participation sports on earth. In many developing countries, taekwondo is the second most popular sport after football. And for me, participant numbers are more significant than spectator numbers.

Because it is better to do than to watch. This is what Sport for All truly means.

Taekwondo’s huge global participant population grants the World Taekwondo Federation enormous geographical reach.

It also grants the federation to reach across all the barriers we humans place in each others’ way: The barrier of race, the barrier of religion, the barrier of culture, the barrier of gender and the barrier of language. Taekwondo smashes these barriers

Currently, we encompass 206 national member federations worldwide. Those federations oversee around 70 million practitioners. This means at every second of every day, someone, somewhere in the world, is practicing taekwondo.

In addition, taekwondo is truly a sport for everyone. We successfully held the 6th World Para-Taekwondo Championships in Samsun, Turkey in September.

These para-athletes are an inspiration and I am humbled by some of the stories I have heard from them, of their triumphs against odds.

I am proud to say that these remarkable people will soon have the chance for ultimate sporting glory, because para-taekwondo will be staged at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics for the first time.

Moreover, the World Taekwondo Federation is no stranger to humanitarian initiatives.

The World Taekwondo Peace Corps, established in 2009, has sent instructors to teach taekwondo and Olympic values to over 100 developing nations.

The educational value of taekwondo is also becoming well known. A number of countries have adopted taekwondo as either compulsory or optional subjects in elementary schools. This is mainly due to the fact that taekwondo teaches respect and self-discipline.

Taekwondo has also been contributing to gender equality. The World Taekwondo Federation was the first International Federation to allow female athletes to wear hijab in competitions, encouraging Muslim women to participate in sports without barriers. The number of men and women participating in Olympic taekwondo competitions is exactly equal for both athletes and referees. That is the reason why U.N. Women recently showed great interest in working with the WTF in the promotion of gender equality and in helping increase the number of young women leaders.

So, I hope you realize that we oversee a worthwhile and widespread sport, understand that the World Taekwondo Federation already has experience working with para-athletes and see that the federation has had experience implementing humanitarian initiatives in the developing world.

So what is next for us?

As I said, the World Taekwondo Federation plans to fulfill our social responsibility under “Olympic Agenda 2020.”

The body we will use to do this is the Taekwondo Humanitarian Foundation, and it is designed to help deal with a very specific issue.

Today, the wide family of humanity are confronted with a grave crisis _ the ongoing explosion in the refugee population.

The U.N. High Commission on Refugees estimates that if all refugees and displaced persons were combined into a single nation, it would be the world’s 24th largest country. The commission also notes that one in every 122 of our fellow humans is a refugee; is internally displaced; or is seeking asylum.

These people often suffer from poor health conditions, poor food, poor water, poor hygiene and lack of exercise.

This is where the Taekwondo Humanitarian Foundation comes in. We plan to dispatch taekwondo instructors to refugee camps around the world.

Taekwondo is ideally suited to this task because it requires minimal equipment. That makes it easy to deploy even in areas with devastated or undeveloped physical infrastructure.

Many refugees and displaced persons have little or nothing to do all day. We can give them something: taekwondo.

As a sport, taekwondo will improve the quality of their physical and mental lives. As an art, it will nourish their spirits.

And once given, taekwondo is a gift that can never be taken away. It can be practiced anywhere, anytime, by anyone.

Our teams will not only teach taekwondo. They will also teach Olympism, global citizenship, world peace and language skills.

The Taekwondo Humanitarian Foundation is being established in the World Taekwondo Federation office in Lausanne, Switzerland. We are finalizing the legal steps we need to establish.

We have started raising funds. In fact, the World Taekwondo Federation headquarters staff and officials all around the world have already made substantial donations.

And we are wasting no time. A federation official based in Saudi Arabia has already carried out a reconnaissance at a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan.

Once we have completed feasibility study, our plan is to establish a pilot program in that camp by the end of this year, or in early 2016.

We are also looking at deploying coaches to Nepal, in the wake of that country’s terrible earthquake. We will not only bring taekwondo instructors, but also medical and educational teams.

These two pilot programs will each last three months or more. They will grant us experience with political disasters _ Syrian war refugees _ and with natural disasters _ Nepalese displaced by earthquake.

Dear colleagues, I consider myself not a Korean, but a citizen of the world. However, as a Korean passport holder, this new initiative is close to my heart.

I remember the devastation of the1950-53 Korean War. I remember the many nations that rallied to the U.N. banner and to Korea’s aid in those dark years.

Now, as a Korean who heads the global taekwondo family, I can return that favor by giving something back to less favored nations.

Once the lessons of the Jordanian and Nepalese pilot programs have been absorbed, the foundation will upgrade its capacity, expand its horizons and go into full operational mode in 2016.

Thanks to the WTF’s international networks, our extensive experience and the deployability of our sport, we are Good to Go.

It was an honor to speak before you. I hope to meet many of you on the sidelines in the hours ahead. We anticipate great results from our pilot projects, putting a smile on the faces of our less fortunate brothers and sisters who are suffering as refugees.

Thank you.