Chonnam Tribune looked for CNU students who are volunteers and interviewed Cho Dae-kwang (Senior, Dept. of Economics), a member of BeSunny, a volunteer group, composed of university students in Korea.

He currently participates in the following BeSunny programs: Happy Hospital, a play program for sick hospitalized children and the University Students Service program where university students plan and enact social-minded activities to serve the community. He said he would continue to serve the community in Gwangju with ‘Sunny Tree’. Let’s look at how he became a volunteer to serve the community.

The Decisive Episode
Smiling shyly, he said, “When I was a child, I was just the black sheep of the family, but when I was a third grader in middle school, my bad behavior was corrected by a teacher, who taught a subject on civics and good citizenship.” The teacher seemed to pay attention to him and kept an eye on his behavior in school. One day, this teacher birched his hands with ten switches for ten days. At the time, he didn’t know the reason why his teacher did this. After this punishment, he perceived that the teacher took care of him and he changed his mind to be a good student. This made him what he is today.

First Volunteer Work
When he was a junior at university, he saw a “Hi-Teacher” invitation advertisement on a CNU bulletin board by chance. “Hi-Teacher” is one social service program supported by SK Telecom. It tutors elementary and middle school students living in child-care institutions. He thought ‘this is a chance where I can render public service’, so he volunteered. He taught mathematics to three middle school students who were living in Moodeung Kids’ home. He said, “I taught them for one and half hours once a week. I felt teaching was very difficult. However, this was meaningful for me.” On ending this “Hi-Teacher” activity, he was chosen as ‘a great volunteer’ from many volunteers.

Domestic and Overseas Social Service Activity
Last summer vacation, he visited a Young-gock branch school at Mt. Jiri with about twenty volunteers who he met through the BeSunny program. He painted the school building and repaired desks and chairs for children to study in a better environment. He worked for not only children and disabled persons but also for old people. He presented cultural performances for old people with some other volunteers.
His passion for voluntary work has also reached abroad. He and another volunteers – about thirty-four – went to Vietnam this summer. They helped two villages for about two weeks. They rotated between two villages everyday according to a daily schedule: They taught Korean language to some Vietnamese elementary school students and about some adults. On afternoon, they moved to another village and painted their houses to help the restoration of the village, and so on.
He remarked with a smile, “I felt great during the two weeks and learned many things from them. Vietnam might be a relatively small weak nation, but Vietnamese take pride in their country.” He still seemed to be extremely impressed by it. He added, “I wanted to each them more things but we had some linguistic difficulties in communicating with them, so I did not feel satisfied.” He was lost in reminiscences for a while. Finally, he mentioned that he didn’t think he was doing volunteer work.

To CNU students
“People say that I have no time nor chance to do volunteer work. But that is nothing but justifications.” He added, “The most thing important is doing, not talking or thinking about doing. This means that if you want and intend to do social-minded services, start this work right now.” Actions do speak louder than words.