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K4L History
The Karate for Life Foundation has its roots in the Bushenyi Primary
Teachers’ College Karate Club founded by Peace Corps Volunteer Eric
Parsons in November 2004 as part of his volunteer service in
Uganda. Initially, Eric founded the club simply to provide the
college students with a fun and unique extracurricular activity to
which they would otherwise not have access. However, after attending a
Peace Corps training course on life skills development education and
its usefulness in combating the HIV/AIDS pandemic currently facing
Uganda and most of sub-Saharan Africa, Eric and his wife, Sarah,
realized how well the two projects (martial arts training and life
skills education) could work together. Thus, in March of 2006, the
Bushenyi Life and Activities Skills Team (BLAST) was formed.
Obtaining PEPFAR (President Bush’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief)
grant funding through the Peace Corps’ Uganda Office, the BLAST project
initiated a series of workshops aimed at training selected college
students to be HIV/AIDS life skills ambassadors and peer
educators. Included in this group were the karate club’s senior
students. Overall, the final goal of this project was, and
remains, to develop a dedicated group of Ugandan youth and young adults
who are dually trained as both fully certified martial arts instructors
as well as life skills peer educators. These students can then
use martial arts as a method to introduce other youth to the Ugandan
life skills curriculum, a curriculum that is actively reinforced by the
martial arts training. By founding karate/life skills
programs of their own in their communities, they will create a
naturally occurring cascade effect that will help ensure the spread of
the linked life skills and karate curriculum throughout Southwestern
Uganda and, perhaps, throughout the entire nation.
As fate would have it, however, Sarah became unexpectedly pregnant in
May 2006, necessitating her departure from Uganda. Due to this
event, the couple had to leave the country before Eric’s top students
had reached a high enough ranking to be fully certified as karate
instructors. Hence, after arriving in the US, Eric worked with his wife
to found the Karate for Life Foundation. The singular goal of this
project is to support the Ugandan students in any way possible and to
continue their development as martial artists and peer role models so
that this worthwhile project can continue.
Towards this end, the Karate for Life Foundation is currently raising
funds with the goal of helping Felex Forward, the group’s senior
student, rebuild his family home, as it was recently slated for
demolition by the local government due to its “unsightliness.”
After this goal is accomplished, the Foundation will shift its focus
towards the creation, support, and development of additional life
skills/karate training centers in Uganda, centers headed and sustained
by Felex and the other Ugandan students. It is towards these
goals that K4L is firmly dedicated.
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