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#Improved teamwork and leadership #Fulfillment from volunteering; a special experience #Joy of growing while making a positive impact
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Name: Choi Baek-hyeon
Gap year program participated in: Join us! Gap Year Culture Project ★ GVA provides volunteer supplies
Volunteer team name: Yeoreum
Volunteer project name: Open Up, Korea
Q.Please give a brief self-introduction and introduce your team.
Hello! My name is Choi Baek-hyeon, and I am majoring in Early Childhood Special Education at Seoul National University of Education. I am twenty-two years old.
And the team participating in this volunteer work is called ''Yeoreum''.
''Yeoreum'' is a team that gathered for educational volunteering starting last winter break,This time, we wanted to do a different kind of volunteering than before, so we applied to the gap year program.
Our team name ''Yeoreum'' has three meanings.
First, the name of the season: a hot and passionate summer.
Second, the noun form of the verb ''to open'', meaning we want to open people''s hearts.
Third, the noun form of ''to bear fruit'', meaning we hope our volunteer activities will bear meaningful fruit.
All team members are students at Seoul National University of Education, but our majors are all different. We study different things and have different perspectives, butwe are friends who have come together with the shared intention of doing good.
Q.Since you are students at an education university, it must have been difficult to find time for volunteering because of qualification exams and required courses. What prompted you to form a team and carry out volunteer activities?
During last winter break and during the semester, we had opportunities to do educational volunteering. Through those opportunities, I felt that volunteering itself can have a positive impact on someone. Also, through that time I felt my own growth, so through this opportunity once againthe belief that I could grow while having a positive influence on otherswas there.
Q.Is there any difference between the volunteer activities you did before and the Korea Gap Year program you participated in this time?
If I had to say the biggest difference,it is that we had to research and create everything from the very beginning.was.
In the educational donation volunteer activities we did previously, we received support for securing venues and necessary supplies, so there were no difficulties, butThis time we had to plan and create everything ourselves, so at first we didn''t know what to do and there was a lot of trial and error. But we tried to forget the previous approach andattempted to approach and plan things in a new way, and through that process of trial and error we learned a lot.Of course, what made it even more meaningful and rewarding was after all the volunteer activities were finished.
Q.Please introduce the volunteer project you planned for this program.
'' Open Up, Korea'' is the project''s title.
This project centered on Random Acts of Kindness (RAK).It means kindness directed at anyone and everyone.It was a campaign to offer drinks as random acts of kindness to passersby. But because the concept of kindness is broad, we defined three types of kindness and let people pick one by drawing lots.
We defined the three kinds of kindness as follows.
1. Give a rose to a passerby.
2. Give a drink coupon to a stranger.
3. Call someone you know and say one of three phrases: ''I love you,'' ''Cheer up,'' or ''Thank you.''
Q.How was the response to the campaign?
We held it at Gwanghwamun, and there were a lot of people that day. On one side of Gwanghwamun,with a tent set up and a banner hung, people showed a lot of interest. In fact, wehad more people come than we expected. We had prepared about 500 drinks, but 700 were given out, so we had to make an additional 200.
Q.Were there any difficulties when implementing the project that differed from when you planned it?
Securing a location to hold the campaign was the most difficult.
Since this was our first time running an event like this, we had no information at all on how to rent a venue, how much it would cost, whether sales activities were allowed, etc. Also, originallywhen we planned it there had been more types of kindness, but when carrying it out we reduced them to three so they could be performed more easily.
And we should have explained the purpose of the event, but because we didn''t, some participants didn''t understand the essence of the project. This made us realize that what we think while planning is different from actually implementing it.
Q.When did you feel the most rewarded while carrying out the project?
What made me feel the most rewarded was that the campaign received a better response than expected and we were able to finish it successfully.
Also, personally, being able to work with 10 team members as a team leader.It was a project that could only be possible because everyone coordinated their teamwork and worked together.I was very thankful that the team members worked hard and strived as if they were one.
Oh, and at the end I checked the comments from the people who received drinks one by one, and I felt really proud to see messages of support written there.
Q.Do you have any memorable episodes from the campaign?
The wind was very strong.Because the tent wasn''t a good product, it would fly away whenever the wind blew even a little strongly, and the box sculptures kept falling over.GVA managed to get sandbags from a nearby construction site, so we were barely able to solve it (laughs).
Q.Has anything changed or what did you gain through this volunteer project?
Personally, through the experience of being a team leader,leadershipI was able to learn it.I also learned how to run meetings without being distracted and keep them focused, and in terms of event management like renting a venue, I was able to have special experiences I hadn''t had before. These experiencesare not easily available as a university studentexperiencesso they feel all the more valuable.
Q.What are your plans for the future?
I''m thinking I might do another volunteer project around winter break.I want to do volunteer work again that I plan and carry out from the beginning like this time.It''s hard, but it''s equally rewarding and there''s a lot to gain.
Q.To me, ''volunteering'' is?
For me, volunteering is the sun rising at dawnis.
When the sun rises at dawn, it''s faint at first—though it sheds light, the sense of darkness is stronger, isn''t it?But as time passes, if you imagine it shining far into the distance, thatof my volunteering also began with small acts of service at school, but over time I became more experienced and comfortable, and I was able to carry out large volunteer projects like this gap-year program.
