Charitable Basketball Competition

The Korea High School Basketball Association (KNHBA) announced that it successfully held the second charity basketball tournament in 2024 at Gimpo Indoor Gymnasium and donated the proceeds of the tournament to Mental Health Korea.

The Korea High School Basketball Association is a group of 368 youth basketball team members from 22 schools and aims to promote youth mental health and exchange and connect between schools by holding charity basketball tournaments and expanding donation culture, promoting youth mental health, donating sports talents, operating vacation sports classes, donating sports goods, and delivering sports scholarships.

Jeong Yeon-woo, the founder of the association, is a student at Cheongsim International High School and has been a swimmer since childhood, and still plays various sports such as fencing, swimming, skiing, and basketball at the same time. He expressed his ambition to promote sports' importance in youth mental health and suicide prevention, saying exercise is effective in solving youth mental health problems, which have become serious since the pandemic. Choi Dong-jin, president of the association at Ansan Dongsan High School, pointed out that the current entrance examination system belittles sports activities, stressing that the KNHBA will play an important role in promoting the importance of sports activities.

About 200 teenagers from 14 high schools across the country participated in the competition, including Yongin Foreign Language High School, Korea Science Gifted High School, National Academy of Korean Studies, and Ansan Dongsan High School. Emphasizing that school grades are not a measure of happiness or mental health, they provided an opportunity to recover mentally and build bonds by sharing free and safe conversations and support with each other through exercise.

In addition to basketball, the association intends to introduce unique sports such as Kabaddi that students can be interested in in the future, and to visit elementary schools as community volunteers to promote the importance of sports activities.

Choi Yeon-woo, CEO of Mental Health Korea, emphasized at the donation delivery ceremony, "We hope that there will be more creative and passionate mental health projects led by teenagers in Korean society, and this is an important activity that changes the mental health culture positively." He added, "It is important for youth to take the lead in speaking out, and to change society by building social experiences through various cooperation and solidarity." 홀짝게임

Meanwhile, the competition was led by teenagers and contributed to promoting sports activities and promoting the importance of mental health, and KNHBA plans to continue making efforts to help more students participate in these activities.