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UPF-Estonia Co-Sponsors ‘One Korea’ Event
Written by Avo Martinson, president, UPF-Estonia
Wednesday, June 28, 2023
Tallinn, Estonia—The fourth One Korea event combined a symbolic football match with a Peace Road walk.
UPF-Estonia and the Estonian Korean Cultural Association jointly organized the One Korea peace project to send to North and South Koreans a message in support of peaceful Korean reunification.
The first part of the peace project, which was held at the Karjamaa School in Tallinn, centered on football. The Peace Game symbolized the unity of the Korean people, with the young players wearing football shirts with the Korean Unification Flag.
In the opening address Dr. Katsumi Otsuka, the UPF co-chairman for Europe and the Middle East, said, “I am absolutely sure that today’s Peace Game will bring about unity on the Korean Peninsula.”
Arina Han, the chairwoman of the Estonian Korean Cultural Association, said that the participants’ coming together sends a message to the Korean people. Mrs. Han’s parents were born on the Korean Peninsula but moved to Kazakhstan when the Korean War broke out.
UPF-Estonia President Avo Martinson explained the purpose and history of the One Korea project. He quoted UPF co-founder Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon: "Blood is thicker than water; a country can be divided like that, but not its people."
The first Estonian Peace Game took place in the village of Pärnu-Jaagupi on September 4, 2017, after North Korea had launched its missiles in July and August, which once again caused anxiety around the world.
In 2018, the second Peace Game was held in Pärnu County, in the village of Lindi and the city of Pärnu. UPF-Estonia invited a South Korean team to play with Estonian youth for the unification of Korea.
In 2019, the One Korea project took place at the same Karjamaa School. Young people from Finland came to play with Estonian youths in support of Korean reunification.
For the fourth Peace Game event, on June, 28, 2023, children from Latvia and Estonia played with children from the Estonian Korean Cultural Association as mixed teams.
Before the game there was a unification ceremony. Wearing shirts with the flags of North and South Korea, two boys met in the middle of the field, bowed, and exchanged letters of peace. After putting on new T-shirts with the Korean Unification Flag, they bowed, hugged each other, and placed two doves, symbolizing peace, on each side of the stadium.
After the teams played two games, Jacques Marion, the UPF co-chair for Europe and the Middle East, presented each player with a special One Korea medal.
The second part of the day’s program was a Peace Road event, in which all the participants walked to the Estonian Korean Cultural Association, carrying a Peace Road banner and balloons.
At the cultural center, the participants enjoyed a Korean meal. Olga Martinson, the president of the Estonian chapter of Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU), an organization that is affiliated with UPF, offered a toast for peace together with Mrs. Arina Han.
During lunch, a letter from composer and conductor Kristjan Järvi, who has been named the honorary consul of South Korea to Estonia, was read aloud. Mr. Järvi thanked UPF for its work toward Korean reunification and invited UPF-Estonia representatives to the grand opening of the South Korean Embassy in Tallinn in the beginning of September.
UPF-Estonia President Avo Martinson awarded an Ambassador for Peace certificate to Dejan Adam, who witnessed war in the former Yugoslavia firsthand and became a missionary in Kosovo and a peacemaker between Serbs and Albanians.
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