Beharry Restaurant Holdings Inc., through KFC Guyana recently made a financial contribution of $1.5 Million towards the completion of the Guyana Karate Daigaku (meaning college) at Liliendaal.
It was a simple presentation ceremony recently, which was followed up by another act of generosity when the franchise treated the over 30 students and trainers at Transport Sports Club to its renowned ‘Finger Licking Good’ chicken.
“KFC Guyana is very proud to donate $1.5 million dollars toward the construction of the Guyana Karate College (GKC) headquarters building in Liliendaal,” said Pamala Manasseh, Marketing Manger of the fast food franchise.
“KFC is pleased to be the leading supporter for GKC and has a history of sponsoring and supporting our local talent,” she added.
“The KFC management and staff of our nine locations throughout Guyana congratulate GKC on this monumental step and wishes GKC many more successes,” Manasseh ended. According to Karate Master, Frank Woon-A-Tai, who recently was promoted to 10th Dan, he is fulfilling his dream everyday as the college moves closer to completion.
In an exclusive interview with this publication, Woon-A-Tai explained that it was over four decades ago when he saw a karate show, `Karate the hand of Death’ that initiated his interest in the sport. Interestingly, it was the same actors from the movie that became Woon-A-Tai’s teachers while he was studying in Japan.
Woon-A-Tai thanked the company for its significant contributions which he declared, will move the college closer to its completion.
The 10th Dan master explained that once the acre of land was acquired, over $35 Million was raised but still needs more donations for it to be completed. He noted that recently, Sankar Auto Works also donated a significant sum.
“We’ve already put up the floor, three walls and roof. We just need the main wall but the columns, we have enough money to put up the blocks but the steel columns are expensive, a little over a million dollars each and we need five of those so once we get that we can start opening the dojo to an operational level,” Woon-A-Tai said.
He revealed that the size is almost two times the current facility that is in use now and will see a larger capacity being able to be accommodated.
In fact, the current facility has been accommodating approximately 40 students on any of the three practice days with the youngest being three-year-old Zseni Azweem who has been training for over six months.
Woon-A-Tai related that the facility is expected to be one of the premier Karate institutions in the region.
“It is going to be a State-of-the-Art dojo. When I started, I had to go to Japan to study but now people from all over the world can come here to study and I intend to build some dorms and so on because we have a huge piece of land,” he added.
