|
WTF Leaders Welcomed by Nepalese Prime Minster during Aid Reconnaissance Mission
WTF Leaders Welcomed by Nepalese Prime Minster during Aid Reconnaissance Mission
The WTF’s humanitarian mission to Nepal got off to a flying start, being received by the country’s prime minister at his official residence in the capital of Kathmandu just hours after the delegation had touched down from Seoul.
Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli thanked the delegation for their visit, noting that Nepal is moving forward on the sports front, with recent international success in cricket. Having seen taekwondo at the Asian Games in Incheon, Korea in 2014, it was, Oli noted, “very excellent.”
Nepal is currently assessing three sports in order to choose a national sport, which will be taught in schools. “There is the question of the selection of a national game,” Oli said. “Taekwondo, volleyball and cricket: These three games are recommended.”
WTF President Chungwon Choue suggested that taekwondo might offer Nepal the best opportunity to win laurels in international sporting competitions. He also briefed Oli on plans to operate a Taekwondo Humanitarian Foundation, or THF, program in Nepal to assist some of the hundreds of thousands of persons displaced by the devastating 2015 earthquakes.
Choue then presented the prime minister with an honorary ninth-degree black belt and a range of gifts -– a coffee-table WTF history book, a certificate of appreciation, a set of ornamental Korean earrings and THF brochures.
A high-powered WTF delegation, led by WTF President Choue, is in Nepal through Feb. 5. Mission members include Asian Taekwondo Union President Kyu-seok Lee, European Taekwondo Union President Athanasios Pragalos, Oceania Taekwondo Union President John Kotsifas, and Director General Roger Piarulli, along with a 15-member WTF Taekwondo Demonstration Team.
In addition to meeting senior government officials to build sustainable alignments with Nepalese programs, the main objective is fact-finding prior to establishing a THF program for displaced persons. In an inaugural ceremony on Jan. 31, the mission will donate taekwondo uniforms and equipment for the earthquake victims. The WTF Demonstration Team will perform during the ceremony.
“At this stage, we have some ideas and I am confident that once we have met senior officials and visit the earthquake-hit areas, we can deliver pragmatic, workable programs,” said Choue. “We look forward to viewing the situation on the ground and seeing, at first hand, how the THF can assist the Nepalese people.”
After the establishment of the THF in February, the WTF plans to go ahead with its Nepal THF project. THF refugee pilot programs are already underway at two Syrian refugee camps in Jordan and one in Turkey.
The team will also visit the location of a possible future WTF poomsae championship – with the Himalayas as a backdrop – in Pokhara, and visit the construction site of a Nepal government-funded Taekwondo Academy in Kathmandu. They will also meet with high-ranking officers of the Nepalese army and police headquarters.
Choue emphasized that, in line with the International Olympic Committee’s Agenda 2020 and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), global sporting organizations cannot escape their social responsibilities.
”For the WTF, 2016 is an Olympic year and of course, all eyes will be on our elite athletes as they fight it out in Rio,” he said. “But we are also thinking beyond the competition floor – and what better way to balance the world’s greatest sporting event with a meaningful humanitarian action?”
Source: WTF
|
|
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
