Chairman Cho Jae-ki of Korea Sports Promotion Foundation. (Photo: KSPO)

Korea Sports Promotion Foundation(KSPO) has decided to adopt “people-centered, value-centered, and participation-centered ideals for its realization of social value, which is predicated on its mission to share the pleasure of sports with the people.

The foundation has been focused on the five areas to achieve social value including balanced opportunities, social integration, the creation of jobs, safety, ethical management, and human rights management.

The foundation has been giving a lot of weight to the creation of jobs in the sports industry by focusing on the work related to the certification of the people’s physical health, the assignment of physical instructors, the promotion of sports, matching the jobs, and support for setting up startups, the development of regional sports and tourism, sports industry, voting rights business and creation of funds, in-company ventures, and data business, among other areas.

The foundation helped to create 17,331 jobs last year, up 19.3 percent YoY thru these efforts.

In line with the Ministry of Labor policies, the foundation took action to have expanded its hiring practices including the irregular jobs the Blind Hiring. The expansion of woman in the number of hiring has also been a key concern for its employment policies and plans to boost the expenses for women managers by 15 percent in 2023.

The female managers will be assigned to core positions, strengthen their leadership and providing more opportunities for growth in careers, in the foundation’s personnel policies and the women have been given more stable opportunities in office environment with tailor-made support in such cases as pregnancy, birth and the stages of children’s growth.

The foundation increased the number of women leaders in training to 26 last year as well as the number of women non-standing directors by more than half from 28.6 percent to 57.1 percent. Female managers have been assigned to such key units as managerial planning, and reform growth so that women managers are assigned to 54.5 percent of the entire operational units.

The foundation has not been neglecting removal of discrimination for youths and high-school graduates in its hiring policies and employed 23 of them last year by taking a number of special measures including the separate number of the youths for hiring, and the holidays for nurturing children’s growth.

The Korea Sports Promotion Foundation was established as a public foundation to support projects relating to national sports promotion and sports science research. We also support small industries to participate in global exhibitions to boost the level of international competitiveness.

Taekwondo, a popular martial sport is often claimed to have historical origins on the Korean peninsula with origins said to have been traced as far back as the 1st century BCE. However, such historical claims are difficult to empirically verify and separate from the influences of neighboring counties.

The sport rose to prominence following the end of Japanese occupation with the end of WWII.

Formalized rules were established in 1961 and in 1988 the sport became an Olympic event. The name “Taekwondo” literally means way of foot and fist, although the modern emphasis lies on the kicks. This may be a way to help legitimize the sport's connection to the traditional practice called Taekkyeon, which originated in Korea during the Goguryeo period in the 4th century.

Taekkyeon uses hands and feet as well as any part of the body; though only open feet and open hands are allowed during competitions. The motions are smoother and more curvilinear than in Taekwondo. Although both disciplines start with the sound “tae” in English, there is no relationship.

Although there is much controversy regarding the historical origins of many martial disciplines in South Korea, there is little question that, Koreanized or traditional in origin, Korean martial arts and sports have enjoyed considerable success.