We continued with our development of a national Taekwondo team and a Taekwondo federation for Rwanda this month. We were able to host four practices at the Belgian School and trained the clubs from Kigali as well as Butare. They continue to work on their registrations with the Ministry of Sports and after [...]

ATN began preparations for the upcoming youth football tournament. We met with school officials, coaches, and others to prepare for a kids football tournament which will launch in May. The tournament will be called the ATN Peace Cup and will help promote peace and unity among the people of Rwanda.
In addition, ATN coordinated a sports [...]

The work of ATN with the Rwandan Taekwondo Athletes continued in the month of January with three training sessions held at Ecole Belge with an average of ten athletes attending each session. Martin Koonce was able to implement the training techniques used by the Ugandan Taekwondo Federation in beginning the preparation for the athletes [...]

ATN hosted two free sports camps for the youth in Kicukiro District. We conducted a week off football training for 4 hours a day and conducted a week of basketball training for 2 hours a day. Our program served approximately 150 student athletes, boys and girls, in our district, from the ages of 10-18 years.

December was an exciting month for Taekwondo in Rwanda as two master coaches and the women’s national champion arrived for a weekend of training at Ecole Belge for the top Taekwondo athletes of Rwanda. The athletes trained for a total of eight hours from Friday afternoon until Saturday afternoon. Training, technical movements, and preparation [...]

This month Martin Koonce held another training session, attended by twenty of Rwanda’s top Taekwondo athletes where we discussed the proper steps for registration with the ministry of sports; the steps required to begin the Taekwondo Federation of Rwanda; and new techniques learned by Martin while in Uganda. There was great excitement generated in [...]

During the month of November, ATN spent a great amount of time planning and preparing for our youth and sports camps in December. We met with school officials at St. Josephs and St. Patricks, hired coaches, we advertised and talked with kids and their families about our programs and bought equipment to prepare for December.

During a leadership training weekend with church leaders in Rutare, ATN also worked with over 100 kids from the village and surrounding areas. We taught them songs in English, we shared stories from the Bible and we played games together. On Saturday evening, the children were invited. along with the rest of the community, to [...]

The interest in Taekwondo for Rwanda is growing rapidly and their seriousness about wanting to compete internationally caused Martin Koonce to travel to Kampala, Uganda and meet with the heads of the Ugandan Taekwondo Federation. During this visit relationships were established and commitments were made for the national coaches and women’s national champion to [...]

This month we held the first training session for those interested in advancing in the sport of Taekwondo, a martial art form that was developed in Korea and is an Olympic sport. Those who came were from three principle areas; Kigali, outlying areas of Kigali, and Huye (National University of Rwanda). There were [...]