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Etch the Beauty of Sharing in Africa
By Lee Yu-rim, Guest Reporter
Chonnam National University (CNU) operated the First Summer Short-term International volunteer activities to improve students’ global citizenship consciousness and give to them a self-development opportunity. The Office of Student Affairs dispatched 9 students to the country named ‘Lesotho’ which is a landlocked constitutional monarchy in southern Africa. This program is connected with the Korea UNESCO Bridge program, so it is more systemic and meaningful than other volunteer activities.
Before going to Lestho, students did pre-activities from May 17th to June 26th. They participated in workshop held by Korean National Commission for UNESCO for two days and learned about the real meaning of volunteer activities and got to know African cultures. In order to teach the villagers, they trained the Korean class and art class, also the Korean traditional dance and songs like a fan dance, a boating song and so on.
The students are divided into three teams (Living team, Education team and commodity team) and did service with 6 Lesotho Workcamp Association volunteers and 3 Bridge program activists in three local towns (Majakaneng, Kathabeng, Mabalane). They did laborious work, educational activities, cultural activities and interchange activities such as: planting trees, constructing a classroom and a church, teaching Korean and traditional Korean songs, climbing mountains, making candles, doing a home stay. The volunteers not only did service but also communicated with the villagers to interchange with them. One of the participants, Yang Ju-ho (Junior, Major in Computer Engineering) said, "I had a culture shock at the first time because the villagers showered in a different way. They only use the towers when they are showering, not washing with water. But now, I can understand them and knew how to respect other cultures. I thought the volunteer is simply just sacrifice and giving the laborious work before, but now I know that the real volunteer is understanding beneficiaries’ life and communicate with them. It is the best lesson that I learned from this program.” The accomplishment of this program to the village is environmentally positive to the region’s ecology and environment, also socio-cultural effect as providing the opportunity to get to know about Korea’s new life and culture. Also they contribute to economic vitalization by making the most of sources. CNU students experienced the culture difference and had sense to understand it. They got global mind and had a vision to see the world through this program.
This Summer International voluntary service was the first trial as an International voluntary program at CNU, so it is a good step to go forward to the world. The program editor, Yoon Il said that “This program approached to the different thinking in volunteering, not the superior thoughts like ‘They are poor, so help them unconditionally.’ But they approached with the horizontal thoughts to develop their village by waking up their community in town and understanding their environments and ecology problems.” Even though, it has some complements such as former communication problems between the local volunteers, CNU volunteers and the Korean National Commission for UNESCO. CNU established a relationship with Liphiring Village and they are planning a mid to long term project together. Also they are going to continuously interchange with the Korean National Commission for UNESCO. The Second short-term International Voluntary Service will be recruited in September. And they are going to dispatch from December 19th, 2011 to January 8th, 2012 for three weeks. This program has specialties compared to other volunteer activities. So, students who have in mind in volunteer abroad, challenge it!
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