[By NBC-1TV K, Y Yi] SEOUL, Korea (June 29, 2019) - The DMZ(Demilitarized Zone) Peace Festival took place in Paju, Korea today with thousands of taekwondo practitioners taking part to promote a message of world peace.

The Festival is jointly promoted by GCS International, headed by Dr. Chungwon Choue, who also serves as president of World Taekwondo, and the Kukmin Daily, one of Korea’s influential nationwide newspapers.

The inaugural event is organized by the DMZ Peace Festival Organizing Committee and Co. Act, a non-profit organization initially run by high school and college students in the United States.

Under the theme “Hand in Hand for Peace,” the one-day event aims to provide free taekwondo education for children in developing countries and world peace.

The festival was composed of two parts: an official opening ceremony including taekwondo performances by the WT Taekwondo Demonstration Team and the GCS Global Peace Corps Taekwondo Demonstration Team and an art exhibition along the electric fences of the DMZ near the Peace Nuri Park. It takes about one hour by car to get to the Paju Peace Nuri Park from Seoul.

Around 5,000 taekwondo practitioners from across Korea performed a flash mob wishing for world peace.

For the art exhibition of the 2019 DMZ Peace Festival, Cooperation Act, a U.S. NGO, received about 500 art pieces, drawings and/or paintings, in a digital art file from participants outside of Korea. The topic of the art exhibition is world peace. 

“We are pleased to work with the Kukmin Daily for the 2019 DMZ Peace Festival through which we want to show the world that taekwondo is a peace-loving Olympic sport,” said WT President Chungwon Choue.