Christian martial artist takes on human traffickers
How one man’s ‘great passion’ is changing the world
NELSON, BC—When Tae Kwon Do master Dean Siminoff first held a board-breaking fundraiser for International Justice Mission (IJM) Canada in 2013 at his four schools in Nelson and Castlegar, B.C., he had no idea of the enthusiastic response it would generate.
“I said, ‘For every $5 you raise, I’ll let you break one board.’ The kids got so excited, some of them came back with $100, $200,” says Siminoff, a fifth-degree blackbelt and the founder of Kootenay Christian Martial Arts. “My contribution was buying the lumber. And so I’m buying half the lumber store.”
“Breaking Boards, Breaking Chains,” as he called it, raised $11,000 toward IJM’s global ministry to combat human slavery and the sex trade. That success inspired him to make it an annual event—and get other schools onboard.
“To me, justice and the martial arts have always gone hand in hand,” Siminoff says.
“The school I started 20 years ago used the student oath that actually says, ‘I will be a champion of freedom and justice.’ So as I reach out to schools that aren’t Christian, I try to connect with them on this justice level. It’s a common thread, a common language.”
In 2014, seven schools took part, raising $16,000 for IJM. One of those coming onboard was Richmond Martial Arts in Richmond, B.C.
“It’s something the kids look forward to,” says Johnny Ahmed, the school’s founder. “They understand where the money’s going to. But then we don’t talk too much about it, because they’re just kids.”
Ahmed says all his kids want to take part, but only about half are able, because they need their parents to get involved as well.
“You talk about the fact that slavery still exists in the world, kids get that,” says Mark Wollenberg, IJM’s national director of church mobilization. “When they hear about other kids who can’t go to school or can’t play because they’re having to work 16, 18 hours a day, they go, ‘That’s not right!’ They engage very easily.”
This year, thanks to the exposure gained by taking the campaign to various social media and the internet, the same number of schools raised $26,000. Siminoff is confident that as the word spreads, the participation next year will be “North America-wide.”
Siminoff recently went to see firsthand IJM’s work in Uganda and Rwanda, and came back with a vision to help establish martial arts schools there as a way to help those most at risk of falling into the hands of traffickers to protect themselves and not be afraid.
“In my own schools in 15 years, I’ve promoted close to 100 black-belts,” he says. “If we can duplicate that over there, it can really snowball.”
“That’s not an IJM initiative,” says Wollenberg. “That’s Dean’s great passion, and what he sets his mind to, I have full confidence will actually happen. His trip to Africa just spurred him on to see that vulnerable people are protected. And martial arts is for him a way of doing that.”
Siminoff has also now launched his own non-profit called Martial Arts for Justice.
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