A ceremony to mark the end of a Taekwondo Peace Corps summer volunteering programme has been held in Seoul.
The Peace Corps, an initiative of World Taekwondo, sends people around the world to promote peace and spread Korean culture.
Thirty-nine volunteers who have practised taekwondo at university and specialist schools were this summer sent to seven countries – Laos, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Kyrgyzstan, Poland and Fiji.
They ran taekwondo classes with local people with the project backed by state funding.
Shin Myung-ho, the Peace Corps director, attended the disbanding ceremony.
According to the Korea Times, he told the volunteers to be proud of themselves and said they could become future taekwondo leaders.
He added that more work to globalise taekwondo would be carried out.
“The volunteers served as diplomats sharing culture through taekwondo and promoting friendly relations between Korea and other countries,” Shin said.
The Peace Corps was launched in 2008 with the theme of “World Peace through the Great Taekwondo Spirit”.
