About us
Ves Trendafilov
Founder
Passionate in the charity, improving the quality of life for others. Qualified professional with more than 25 years of experience in the boxing world. Over more than 15 years of coaching boxers at all levels, business leaders, elite athletes and other professionals in acquiring a solid foundation in this noble sport.
“Service to many leads to greatness”
Luc Van den Bergh
Co-Founder
Luc is a retired Psychologist with over 40 years of international experience in personality assessment and other HR related subjects. As a Certified Coach he has extended experience in mental and skills training and development, one-on-one coaching and team coaching at all levels. One of Luc’s passions is the continuous improvement of the individual’s well-being both at work and in private life.
Namibia Flores Rodriguez
Ambassador
Namibia has dedicated her life to a seemingly unattainable victory. Namibia, a loyal Cuban, has spent most of her life dreaming of winning Olympic gold. Now, at the age of 39, she has reached the limit of being able to participate in the Olympic Games. Although her peers have encouraged her to leave Cuba and fight under the banner of another nation, Namibia has stayed true to her heritage and has maintained an admirable hope, even as she has continually fought against all odds. Namibia shows us the humble life it has created for itself, all to pursue its Olympic dream, if the Cuban Boxing Federation approves the long-awaited policy change. When not working, Namibia spends much of her time training at Havana’s historic boxing gym El Trejo, the Mecca of Cuban boxing champions. Because of regulations, Namibia trains mostly with men, some of them professional boxers and Olympic medalists.
Maikel Masso
Ambassador
During my boxing career as a boxer and now as a trainer I have learned a lot from this noble sport. Skills, values, discipline and respect. My mission is to transmit all this to children, adolescents, women and men. Since a few years, women’s boxing movement has started. Our boxing school is the first in the country to follow and train women boxers. My mission is also that we can bring our women to the top Olympic level. Together with The Gloves of Hope we can make this happen. I am proud to be part of The Gloves of Hope organization. Together we can make a difference.
Emilio Correa Bayeux Jr
Ambassador
He is a multiple Cuban boxing champion who competes internationally for Cuba. Emilio Correa is 2 x Pan-American champion. World and Olympic medalist.
Freddy De Kerpel
Ambassador
Freddy De Kerpel is a former Belgian amateur heavyweight champion. He began his professional career in 1970 in Los Angeles. Freddie De Kerpel fought in 30 fights as a professional. Of those, he won 25 combats of which 9 by way of knockout. He lost 4 fights and made 1 draw against Jean-Pierre Koopman. In 1974, he became the Belgian middleweight champion. In 1975 he faced Domenico Adinolfi for the European welterweight title (EBU). In the same year he retained his Belgian title against Christian Mossu. He never lost his Belgian title during his professional career.
Yudel Linares
Co-coordinator in Havana, Cuba
The Gloves of Hope is a foundation which represents for me, to fulfill the sacred duty, to show the world through my pictures how they can contribute to Cuban children to have better conditions to train, being even more focused on their sport without shortage of sports equipment, and only focused on training to become future champions.
Photography is my most powerful passion in life, and boxing I feel deeply linked to my art. Many of us recognize the emotional and psychological impact that a good image can have on human beings. That is why I document everything that makes me react, with the objective of not allowing that instant to fade away. I try to transmit, in my images, the story that unfolded in that moment before me. And to be able to document children boxing means a magical moment because in front of your lens you realize many of them may become future champions.
Mélusine Delferière
Team member
As a woman, I have had the opportunity to train in a country that allows me to find a place in the boxing world without any discrimination or restrictions. I think everyone should be given equal opportunity to box. This noble sport is the best drug you can find on earth. I travel to Cuba regularly and I box at the boxing club in Havana that we support. And I can feel and see that women boxers are taking an ever important place in the sport of boxing in the country. They are more and more respected, but there is still a lot of work to do. And we, The Gloves of Hope will bring this work and this energy to see the women and children shine!
Philippe de Pierpont
Team member
As the American writer Joyce Carol Oates says, « Life is a metaphor for boxing — for one of those bouts that go on and on, round following round, jabs, missed punches, clinches, nothing determined, again the bell and again and you and your opponent so evenly matched it’s impossible not to see that your opponent is you… Life is like boxing in many unsettling respects. But boxing is only like boxing.”
In my books and movies, I always try to capture life… and boxing.
I’m proud of being a member of The Gloves of Hope. This organization represents for me an honest and efficient opportunity for Cuban children and women who love and practice boxing to have better conditions to train and focus on their sport.
Why we are doing this
Over the past 50 years Cuba has dominated in Olympic boxing despite the embargo and lack of infrastructure.
In Havana – the Mecca of Cuban boxing – kids practice in parks or empty lots, often without boxing equipment.
Notwithstanding the difficult conditions, these kids exhibit perseverance and determination to follow their dream to become Olympic or world champions when they grow up.
Regretfully, for many of them this is a non-attainable dream – the situation is too difficult, infrastructure is lacking, as is boxing equipment, so many of them lose hope and soon give up.
#Boxeadora
Our right to fight
All over the world women too practice boxing. Cuba was the only country where women were not allowed as members of the national boxing federation. On 5th of December 2022, officials with Cuba’s National Institute for Sports, INDER, announced in a press conference that they would hold a competition of 42 women boxers in mid-December to choose 12 athletes for a women’s team. Emilia Rebecca Hernández, of INDER, said that the changes would make it so that “Cuban women athletes can move up to the place where they belong – right next to men.”
History
Founder of The Gloves of Hope
The Gloves of Hope was founded by Ves Trendafilov, a boxing trainer with many years of experience in the field. Ves is of Bulgarian origin. In the early 90s he started boxing at an amateur level.
Over the years Ves has continued to box and has also completed several sports training courses. In 2005 he moved to Belgium. In 2008 he started teaching his own boxing classes at the Fitness Palace, Brussels.
Ves’s experience
Numbers Speak For Themselves
Over 20
Years of Experience
In 2009 the Ves Boxing Team was born. This is a boxing club for people of different cultures, beliefs, interests and nationalities, practicing both professionally and recreationally.
In 2010, Ves started Olympic boxing training in collaboration with a world-class trainer from Cuba. In 2013, Ves Boxing organized an international 3-day boxing seminar “Olympic Boxing”. This internship was a success story. Meanwhile, Ves obtained the highest diploma as boxing trainer in Belgium.
Over the last 15 years, Ves has coached amateur to professional boxers, beginners, recreational, children, men and women. Also several top athletes representing various sports disciplines. Through his approach, he shows the ability to share his passion for boxing with his trainees.