WTF President Chungwon Choue has urged international sports leaders attending the 2013 SportAccord World Combat Games to join his envisioned "Sport Peace Corps" project.
"Encouraged by the popularity of the Taekwondo Peace Corps program, the WTF, in cooperation with the United Nations and the International Olympic Committee, plans to launch a Sport Peace Corps," WTF President Choue said.
He said, "To this end, the WTF is in close discussions with the United Nations and we expect to see tangible results in the near future."
Dr. Choue said he wants to start the Sport Peace Corps program with the world governing bodies of the 15 martial art and combat sports attending the ongoing 2013 SportAcord World Combat Games.
Under the session topic "Using Combat Sport to Create Social Change: Moving from Vision to Action," Dr. Choue made the remarks in his speech as a panelist at the International Forum: Martial Arts and Combat Sports in Society at the Constantine Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia on 23 October, 2013.
The forum, which drew about 300 governmental, academic and sports representatives as well as athletes, is a prestigious event organized within the framework of the cultural program of the 2013 SportAccord World Combat Games, which kicked off on 18 October for a nine-day run.
Mr. Joel Bouzou, founder and president of Peace and Sport, moderated the session.
"We launched the Taekwondo Peace Corps to instill positive values and discipline in youth - two factors that are key to living a life of virtue and honor," Dr. Choue said in his speech.
"The Corps also creates a platform where young athletes can not only improve their taekwondo skills, but open their minds through cultural exchange, and in the process broaden and deepen their knowledge of the world so that they can be a force to promote peaceful coexistence among the world's nations and peoples."
Dr. Choue unveiled the Taekwondo Peace Corps at an international workshop in Belgium in 2007 and again, later that year, at a Peace and Sport forum in Monaco.
On 22 May, 2010, he proposed the Sport Peace Corps at the 1st UN-IOC Forum at the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, that would expand the scope of sports to involve all Olympic sports on a global scale.
Each Taekwondo Peace Corps team is made up of four competent taekwondo university: three taekwondo masters, each of whom is a qualified taekwondo educator, and one person with the language skills who serve as an interpreter.
Since its first dispatch of Taekwondo Peace Corps members in the summer of 2008, the WTF has sent a total of 927 members to 95 countries over 11 occasions.
Prior to WTF President Choue's speech, Mr. Wilfried Lemke, special advisor to UN Secretary General Ki-Moon Ban on sport for development and peace, made a key-note speech, in which he spoke well of the WTF Taekwondo Peace Corps activities.
In another session on "Investing in Social Programs: Strategies and Modus Operandi," Prof. Jin-bang Yang of Yongin University in Korea made a presentation on taekwondo and the WTF.
Ms. Sarah Stevenson of the United Kingdom, who serves as the taekwondo ambassador of the 2013 SportAccord World Combat Games, also made a presentation as a panelist in a third session on "Activating the Athlete as a Role Model, an Educator and Influencer.
