WT-ADF Cares Project

Kicks off in Rural Nepal

The Cares program offers the school students one-anda-half hours of Taekwondo and Korean language classes after school, four times a week.

“I hope the Cares program will further expand to other schools in Nepal, and other Asian countries,” said WT President Chungwon Choue.

World Taekwondo (WT) teamed up with the Asia Development Foundation (ADF) to start a new WT-ADF Cares Program for students at the Um Hong Gil Human School near Pokhara, Nepal, on Aug. 22, 2022, for a one-year period.

Under the theme “Let’s Build the Future with Taekwondo,” the 2022-2023 WTADF Um Hong Gil Human School Cares project is benefitting 87 middle and high school students at Birenthanti Secondary School in Birenthanti, about two hours from Pokhara by car.

The new USD25,000 WT-ADF Um Hong Gil Human School Cares project is funded by the ADF. The Nepal Taekwondo Association runs the program, dispatching local Taekwondo instructors to the secondary school.

WT signed a cooperation agreement with the Seoul-based Um Hong Gil Human Foundation, headed by Chairman Lee Jae-hoo, at the WT Headquarters in Seoul, Korea, on Aug. 29, 2017.

The Um Hong Gil Human Foundation was established in 2008 and has since built 16 human schools in remote areas of Nepal to commemorate Korean mountain climber Hong-gil Um’s achievement of climbing 16 slopes higher than 8,000 meters in the Himalayas - a world first. Birenthanti Secondary School, which was built in 2013, was the 4th school built by the foundation.

WT cooperated with the Nepal Taekwondo Association to organize the opening ceremony of the WT-ADF Um Hong Gil Human School Cares Program at the

World Taekwondo mourns passing of Grand Master Eui-min KO

secondary school on Sept. 23 with the attendance of Choue and Um, among others.

Since 2016, WT has carried out its Cares programs under the mission “Taekwondo for All” and “World Peace through Taekwondo.”

The vision of the WT Cares Program is to provide Taekwondo to those in need and to empower the powerless, such as orphans, reformatory inmates, alcohol and drug addicts and street children, in developing countries.

In January 2019, WT and the ADF, headed by Joon-il Kim, signed a memorandum of understanding on the WT Cares Program under which the ADF will donate 100 million Korean won (about USD90,000) to WT.

Subsequently, the ADF donated USD150,000 in 2020, USD200,000 in 2021 and USD150,000 in 2022.

WT-ADF Cares projects are under way in Nepal, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan and Timor-Leste.

WT plans to start new Cares projects in Pakistan and Laos next year and hopes to expand WT Cares projects outside Asia with new donations.

In January 2019, WT and the ADF, headed by Joon-il Kim, signed a memorandum of understanding on the WT Cares Program to donate 100 million Korean won (about USD90,000) to WT. The ADF donated WT in Cares funds USD150,000 in 2020, USD200,000 in 2021 and USD150,000 in 2022.

Besides the three new WT-ADF Cares projects, WT-ADF Cares projects are also under way in four countries: Bhutan, Cambodia, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

WT aims to expand WT Cares projects outside Asia with new donations.

World Taekwondo pays its respects to Grand Master Eui-min KO who passed away on January 21, 2023, by setting up a memorial altar at the federation’s headquarters in Seoul.

The Korea-born resident of Germany had contributed widely to the sport, and was a former chair of the WT Technical Commission.

We are indebted to Mr. Ko for his outstanding contribution to World Taekwondo.