Fujairah Crown Prince donates $100,000 to taekwondo foundation helping refugees worldwide

FUJAIRAH // The Crown Prince of Fujairah, Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad Al Sharqi, has donated US$100,000 to the Taekwondo Humanitarian Foundation and its programmes for refugees.

At the opening ceremony of the fifth Fujairah Open Taekwondo Championships, which attracted 589 athletes from 35 countries, the Crown Prince made the Dh367,000 donation and explained why.

“I make this donation because taekwondo is an economical, easy-to-deploy tool that delivers self-discipline, self-defence and self-confidence to refugees, so effectively upgrading their lifestyles,” said Sheikh Mohammed.

The THF’s mission is to empower refugee children via the martial art and sport of taekwondo, as well as through related educational programmes that teach good global citizenship and Olympic values.

“This money will be transparently used to create long-term, sustainable programmes for the benefit of refugee children worldwide,” said Chungwon Choue, president of the World Taekwondo Federation.

THF, together with the WTF’s in-house World Taekwondo Cares programme, has been operating programmes for refugees in camps in Jordan and Turkey and among persons displaced by earthquakes in Nepal.

This year, the two organisations plan to build a dedicated taekwondo training facility at the Azraq Refugee Camp in Jordan and at another, as-yet to be decided refugee camp in Rwanda.