Kickboxing Kurdistan

My name is Franklin H. Price, and I am a mixed martial arts instructor in Tallahassee, Florida.

I am volunteering with two other coaches (Caterina Valente of Switzerland and Colin Bowyer of Florida) to lead kickboxing and martial arts activities and trainings with refugees, internally displaced persons, and humanitarian frontline workers in Iraqi Kurdistan from November 20-24 of this year. We are working on this project with Bring Hope Humanitarian Foundation, a non-profit organization.

All three of us coaches are volunteering our time and have provided our own transportation. We are seeking funding for equipment that we can use for our classes, and leave behind for other trainers to use. We will use donations to buy boxing gloves, handwraps, Muay Thai pads, and bellypads, cover air freight costs, and to defray some of our meals, lodging, and expenses.

We will start the week training humanitarian aid workers in basic kickboxing and self-defense, so that they can use what they learn as part of the physical education they provide for refugees and internally displaced persons. This way we hope to create a sustainable program, something that can last into the future.

At the end of our visit, we will train at refugee camps and at camps of internally displaced people in northern Iraq. We will be working with children and adults. We will train 20 to 30 people per class, and will have classes in the morning and afternoon.

Thank you,

Franklin H. Price