A hard-to-reach youth demographic in the North has found a reason to stay in school – and in shape. Taekwondo, the Korean martial art, is expanding rapidly in the North and having a markedly positive effect on at-risk youth as well as the community at large. What’s more, the program has close ties to Ottawa’s taekwondo community.
“As a principal (of an Iqaluit school) I was dealing with a lot of behaviour problems and really just a lack of interest,” said Don Peters, 58, principal of Aqsarniit Middle School. Peters created a taekwondo after-school program two years ago and he has been seeing some encouraging results.
“It has turned around the attendance at the school as well as a lot of the behaviour problems, it’s been a godsend for us,” said Peters.
Grandmaster Phap Ken Lu, 54, is a Canadian taekwondo leader who runs three taekwondo schools in Ottawa. He has mentored the Iqaluit taekwondo experiment since it started. He says the program is successful because it “builds up the trust between the student and the instructor, this way we can help them to achieve their goals, not only in taekwondo but also to improve their schoolwork and behaviour at home.”
According to Lu, taekwondo goes beyond getting kids into shape, it helps build good citizens. “We can guide them on how to exercise, how to focus and learn discipline and at the same time how to respect their elders and carry themselves more confidently in public,” said Lu.
Lu has travelled twice to Iqaluit to award students belts and oversee training. Iqaluit students have journeyed to Ottawa four times for friendship competitions against Lu’s students, which, for these northern youths, is a rare chance to travel and compete in their sport.
The program’s instructors perhaps have the closest Ottawa-Iqaluit connection. They have travelled eight times to receive vital training from Lu’s Ottawa schools that they cannot receive at home.
According to Peters, the program is most effective with “the group of at-risk kids who had no connection to traditional schools, this (program) seemed to give them something to connect with.” Children who wish to participate in the program must attend school during the day and be model citizens in and out of school.
Simply getting children to attend school alone is an impressive accomplishment for the program and is already having a positive effect on the community.
“In the North a lot of the kids come to school because they want to; there is really no pressure from their parents to attend,” said Peters.
But that is not all this program has to offer. “I use to have so many problems with some of the kids that now attend the taekwondo classes, they use to fill up my office because they were fighting in the playgrounds or getting into trouble after school,” said Peters. “We give them a chance and an area where they can get that frustration and extra energy out.”
When Peters, himself a former instructor, moved to Iqaluit to become principal of Aqsarniit, taekwondo was nowhere to be seen. He began teaching the martial art again when Iqaluit resident Maryse Mahy, herself a black belt, talked to him about the possible benefits of an afterschool program. Mahy had been looking to start a taekwondo program in Iqaluit, going so far as enlisting the help of Lu and applying for government grants. Due in large part to the help and training of Lu and the creation of an after-school program by Peters, Mahy realized her goal and the Iqaluit Taekwondo Society was created to spread the sport in the North.
The sport is becoming so popular that they cannot find enough instructors to teach classes. According to Peters, there are 100 students and adults enrolled in his program and the Iqaluit Taekwondo Society can’t keep up with the demand from the community.
“That is a problem for us,” said Peters, “I am running five classes a week. We have one other black belt up here and between the two of us we have to run a lot of classes.” The lack of instructors is not slowing the trend from spreading however. “There are a couple more schools in Iqaluit that want to start a program but we don’t have the instructors to start them up.”
The Iqaluit Taekwondo Society would like to see the sport spread throughout the outlying communities of Nunavut. Ultimately their goal is to spread taekwondo afterschool programs throughout the North and even include the sport in the Arctic Winter Games.
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