To reaffirm the value of sport in an international community where barriers of religion and culture exist, the Dream Together Seoul Forum 2019 was held at the Grand Ballroom, JW Marriot Hotel Seoul, Korea, on November 26.
The Dream Together Seoul Forum is a one-day annual event, and this year it focused on the theme of Sport Value and Diffusion which included intriguing presentations and discussions from global sport leaders to discuss key issues in an effort to unite people under the common agenda of sport.
Director of the Dream Together Master Program Joon-ho Kang stated in his welcoming remarks, “The value of sport has been misunderstood and under-evaluated.” He continued to stress that this misunderstanding should actually motivate sport administrators to educate themselves and those around them at the grassroots level whereas nations are obligated to bolster attempts in using sport for development by supporting projects like the Dream Together Master.
In a gesture of continued support to DTM alumni, nine alumni had the honor of receiving Dream Together Master Alumni Contest Awards. The awards had two categories of Project Proposal Award and Best Practice Award in which 3rd batch Ihsan Abdallah from the Palestine Football Association and 4th batch Umair Asif from the Pakistani Kafka Welfare Organization grabbed first place from each category respectively.
A case for an academic demonstration of sport value was presented by Keynote Speaker Ian Paul Henry, Emeritus Professor from Loughborough University in his speech entitled “Evaluating the Case for the Promotion of Social Values through Sport,” where he stated that “sport can play a part in the realization of social values.”
Other figures including Jae-kee Cho, Chairman of Korea Sports Promotion Foundation; Junghwa Pyo, Director of Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Dongju Choi, Professor from Sookmyung Women’s University; Thet Khaing Win, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Health and Sports Myanmar; Niki Koutrou, Program Director of University of Kent; Jungnam Kim, Director of PyeongChang 2018 Legacy Foundation; Jiae Sohn, Professor from Ewha Women’s University, and DTM alumni Mauricio Hernandez, Director of Transparency in Sport; Ihsan Abdallah from Palestine Football Association; Umair Asif, Executive Director from Kafka Welfare Organization; and Tara Talitha Former Sr. Member of INASGOC contributed to the discussion of Sport Value and Diffusion.
