2012년 5월 28일 월요일

Seoul YWCA News in May, 2012

Sungju Foundation-sponsored bazaar
March 30


Seoul Y held a sponsored bazaar with Sungju foundation. Sungju Foundation, leading the company's social contribution, keep helping on Seoul YWCA's social work. Also It has been sponsoring 'Asian Women's human right project' officially since 2011. Bazaar's profits will be used for sponsoring the 6th 'Asian Women's human right project' in this second half. 'Asian Women's Human Rights Project' is one of the major international volunteer activities of Seoul YWCA. In project, there are human right education, international workshop, human right club activity and so on. We intend to grow global leaders who own the servant leadership by this course. It was a meaningful bazaar which share a joy of good consumption for members and help for Burmese women refugees.


Teaching Youth Leadership at Seongdong
April 7

Seongdong youth center held a leadership development train for youth with a topic 'What is leadership?' at Myung-il women's highschool. Participants learned self-leadership for establishing vision and servant leadership.


Time machine travel to Royal tomb in Kangnam
April 7

Gangnam Youth Center started the first session of International Heritage experience series, 'Joseon Royal Tombs-Dongguneung and Gwangneung'along with 27 elementary school students. They had good time of learning about Gwangneung and Dongguneung, recreating plans to the Royal Tombs of the Joseon Dynasty.


Renovate Seoul Y Sports Center

The first half of 2012, Seoul Y Sports Center is renovated. It became an useful place to keep member's health by changing old equipments and overall array. Let's be more healthy in this spring with New health kettle bell, medicine ball and equipments.



Nowon Youth career planner Job briefing
April 1

Nowon Women Resources Development Center conducted a Job briefing for women interested in youth career planner course, 108 people attended. Lee Jina at Brand-U Leadership Center was invited and delivered the need for youth career planner and curriculum.



'Gangnam amazing Saturday Seoul EXPO'
April 5 to 8

At Gangnam Youth Center, 'amazing Saturday in Seoul EXPO' were carried out for four days. Total of 19 various promotional booths including Community connection programs, extracurricular activities program by school CA teacher, youth club training center club were operated. It was a good chance to introduce various programs of Gangnam Youth Center to 1,100 local residents and young people.



Program for Releasing stress from parenting Grandchild at Bongcheon
April 12

Bongcheon social welfare center held a stress releasing program called 'Happy Plus' for grandparents who is suffering from parenting their grandchild. They shared the difficulties of parenting among grandparents and the way they release parenting stress, also went to sauna together. By this program, they recovered their health physically as well as mentally.



Garak 'Youth Green School' Environmental Program
April 14

Garak Social Welfare Center conducted an environmental program 'Youth Green School' for children in grades of 3-6 Elementary School from the low-income families. Under the theme of "Making natural dye handkerchief", they experienced handkerchief-making activities with plants collected outdoors, petals and leaves tapping with their fingers on a cotton handkerchief. It was a precious time for children to realize the importance of nature.



Youngdeungpo job finding service
April 16 to 17

Youngdeungpo Women Resources Development Center is conducting a job finding service with a bus as one part of women's job support service. The bus visits residence monthly and we give career education, advices and so on. go directly to vocational education and career counseling is conducted. In April, we finished free employment counseling and job training successfully at the square in front of Yeongdeungpogu office.



Further education for Postpartum helper
April 21

Women Resources Development Department conducted further training with more than 70 postpartum helpers. Seoul Y is conducting this further training every year to give more expertise to helpers. In this session, they learned teaching methods for breast-feeding and postpartum stretching and giving advice to mothers about body changes after childbirth and so on. Also helpers were enthusiastic about learning.

Pleasant chatter “Good Morning! Mama in the world”

The only one broadcast

At Gwanak-gu, there is a very special radio broadcast which is made by international marrige migrant women and local women with GwanakFM, Gwanak rainbow network(Union of 11 multicultural support center, Bong-cheon welfare center is main participant). This is broadcasted in Korean, Chinese, Filipino and Russian from Monday to Thursday, 10am-11am at Gwanak FM 100.3Mhz channel. The radio broadcast "Good morning! Mama in the world!(hereinafter "Gut-se-ah") includes their home country news, international information and music. It has been one year from their first broadcasting on March 14th, 2010.

Pleasure of communication, an attraction of radio broadcast

'Gut-se-ah' is projected for strengthening the capacity of immigrant women in the community to provide an opportunity to participate. Simultaneously, overcoming discrimination and prejudice that come from a lack of understanding among local resident are intended to increase the understanding of other cultures through the improvement of multicultural awareness. 'Gut-se-ah' is fascinating and friendly because they communicate with listeners, gain the sympathy from middle aged women and immigrant women. Immigrant women of various nationalities share episode of the life in Korea, difficult points, parenting, cooking information, and cultural episode. Especially, these all information is provided in various languages for new-immigrant women. They can apply stories to DJ by homepage or smart phone, ask their questions and solve them together.


The broadcast created by themselves.

Collaborators of 'Gut-se-ah' broadcast are three local women and 12 immigrant women. All of them completed three months of media education and finished courses for community study, knowledge education and volunteering as an multicultural activist. They has been involved in the entire production process like writing the script, planning, broadcasting, liasing guest and interviewing. At the beginning of this, they used late night time to prepare script and information after their kids go to bed. Being a housekeeper as well as a broadcaster was not easy. They keep thinking about topics everytime while walk the street, wash the dishes, all the time. And that efforts make rich broadcast. Last year, they broadcasted the live show by four languages at multicultural festival and at Seoul national university subway station. During settling into multicultural society, we encourage their positive social participation . Efforts of activists with a passion for broadcasting the 'Gut-se-ah' is still 'On Air' thanks to their passion and effort.

When my peace become your violence

Lecture for global citizen




There would be no one in the world who hates peace. But, even at this moment, many wars and conflicts in the globe shows clearly that we live in the world far away from peace. Indeed, is it possible for us to bring the peace to this earth?
 


Into the lecture for peace
In April, even if Spring has not come yet, Seoul YWCA opened a program called . In the first class held on 4th April (Wed), , an expert in peace studies, Lee Dae Hoon, who is professor of Sung Gong hoe University, gave a lecture on the subject of "What is the global peace"


Professor Lee said that 'to think when my peace become your violence' should be the starting point of a discussion for global peace. He commented that we will never bring the global peace on the sidelines with half-hearted pacifism, adding that active reflection on peace should be originated from myself with the questions such as "Why is not world in peace?" "Then, what should I do for peace?" The unpeaceful situation is caused by discrimination, exclusion, and the structured violence that are widely penetrated into our daily life as well as international politics. Thus, when you look into others' sufferings caused by peaceful you regardless of your intention, you stand on the starting line to improve a structured violence.



Spot for a Heated Discussion and Questions
Various members such as college students, businessmen, NGO staffs, housewives, college professors have joined in this lecture. They had a heated discussions and questions as the lecture went on. An NGO staff said. "I doubted if development assistance for the developing countries is for the sake of a genuine world peace." One businessman raised other question; "Whenever we talk about peace, the national division issue that Korea faces has been brought up. How should I understand this matter." And, the another question is. "Why has our society a severe racist stereotype? Is it because we have a relatively short experience in terms of time span on various ethnic groups?" With the contentious discussions and questions, one conclusion is drawn that we should be the starting point of peace on the each person's level to achieve peace on the global level ultimately.

In the next three lectures, participants will review specific cases of peace and conflict such as Burma's democratic movement story, racial conflicts in Africa, disputes between Palestine and Israel. Participants' eyes with passion already stays to my eyes. The famous Korean poet Park Rho Hae defined peace in his poem like this. "Rejecting little violence in a daily life, reflecting on ourselves as we condemn others and society, and having war stay out of our life though living in the war.

Pleasure of Sharing and Joy of Learning

Member talent donation program, 'Every School in the World'




Seoul YWCA is the organization with more than 10,000 members. The driving force of a membership organization is no other than people, its members. 90 years of Seoul YWCA is the history of members, the members have been a main part of the organization. Especially, the importance of active members who participate in YWCA's projects and activities carry a more significant meaning in the civil society where the citizen's participation is a current issue of the society. Thus, the Department of Membership opened a member talent donation program called to help YWCA members to exchange, share their talent, and to be more active in the organization.

In the program , every member with talent may suggest an opening of lecture , and members of Seoul YWCA are welcome to attend the lecture. That is, everyone could share joy of teaching and learning each other in YWCA, a learning place.

For our 1st lecture, we are running from Apr 3 to May 20. Due to many participants, the course is split into two classes every Tuesday, one begins at 2 pm and the other at 7:30 pm. Ms. Yoon Young, an internationally married immigrant woman donated her teaching talent by giving members lecture not only on China's culture and society but also on Chinese language. She said, " I am impressed by YWCA member's incredible participation and passion for learning . That encouraged me to teach." The goal of the attending members of this lecture l is to introduce YWCA in Chinese at the completion of the course.

The 2nd lecture was the program called . 20 members gave a visit to the "New Collection 2011' of Seoul Metro Museum at 10 am April 17(Tuesday). Letting the members enjoy contemporary art with easy and kind explanation, Ms. Hye Ran Choi, executive director of Seoul YWCA donated her docent lecture that enabled the members to understand the artists' personal history and the world of artwork easily. The collection is an annual exhibit held by Seoul Metro Art Museum to introduce its new collections to citizens during the year of 2011. By looking around modern art works as well as future-oriented trends, participants got to have ideas about streams and trends in the contemporary Korean Art.


'Every school in the world' are continually preparing its 3rd lecture , waiting for members who want to donate their talent. We hope that YWCA would be the more fruitful membership organization through a practice campaign of .

2012년 5월 17일 목요일

Happy Birthday to the YWCA of Korea ! / World YWCA and Member Associations News / YWCA News / Home - World YWCA

Happy Birthday to the YWCA of Korea ! / World YWCA and Member Associations News / YWCA News / Home - World YWCA


Happy Birthday to the YWCA of Korea !
 
World YWCA 15/05/2012 10:20 am
 
Kyung Ai Cha National President of the YWCA of Korea
On April 20, 2012 the YWCA of Korea proudly celebrated its 90th Anniversary together with 300 participants including members, donors and partners.
 
Thanks to the efforts of its three co-founders, Kim, Park and Yoo, and despite a difficult political context, on April 20, 1922, the YWCA of Korea was officially established.
 
From its inception the YWCA of Korea focused on women’s rights and in the 1920s – 1930s, it initiated the Marriage Registration Campaign. In the 1940s – 1950s, and especially following the Korean War (1950-1953), the association began to provide much needed education to underprivileged rural women. In the 1960s – 1980s, during the Korean Industrial Revolution, the main focus became women labourers, and a national campaign for women workers’ rights was organised by the YWCA of Korea. As of the 1990s, the YWCA of Korea continued its trend of focusing on the needs of the time, and thus became concerned with environmental issues and promoted a national campaign on recycling.
 
The YWCA of Korea currently carries out a number of projects, in particular those related to peace with justice and women’s leadership. Leadership training is being offered to some 10,000 youths and students, who then have the opportunity of participating in decision-making processes through councils. Women’s leadership development is also carried out through various international programmes.
 
Core training courses are provided for YWCA of Korea staff, volunteer leaders, and board and committee members, so that they may better understand and share the vision of the YWCA movement.
 
A key concern for the YWCA of Korea is that of the reunification of the two Koreas. The association supports North Korean refugees living in South Korea and helps them to become fully integrated. North Korean women are assisted with education and employment, and a mentoring service and an internship programme are provided. In addition, the association promotes a fundraising campaign by national members to send powdered milk and underwear to North Korean children suffering from cold and hunger. In 1995, an international programme for young people from Asia and the Pacific to come to Korea to share values such as justice and peace and to engage actively in peacekeeping activities in the community was initiated by the YWCA of Korea.
 
The many guests at the 90th Anniversary celebration, which took place in the YWCA building in Seoul, included the President of the YWCA of Japan, Naoko Matano and the Vice President of the YWCA of Japan, Ritsko Mibae who congratulated the YWCA of Korea on its special anniversary and thanked it for its support and relief donation during the devastating earthquake and Tsunami which struck Japan in 2011.
 
During the celebration, the YWCA of Korea also celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Korea Women’s Leadership Award, created in memory of Esther Park, one of the founders of the YWCA of Korea. The award honours women who made a great contribution to society through women’s leadership, as well as a young woman leader showing creativity and professionalism. This year’s recipients were Lee, Hyo Jae, a renowned scholar on feminism and the first feminist activist in Korea, and Im, Young Shn, who has travelled the world to deliver a message of peace to conflict areas. A special award was also attributed to Park, Sung Young, a congresswoman active in the campaign against sending back North Korean refugees by force.
 
The celebration was festive, moving and symbolic. In the words of national President, Kyung Ai Cha, “For the YWCA of Korea, celebrating our 90th anniversary did not mean simply celebrating our history, it is also an opportunity to prepare a vision for the future. We consider the 90th anniversary as the first step towards the 100th anniversary of the YWCA of Korea – for the next decade we will listen to God’s voice as he directs us in building a society with justice and peace, in developing women’s leadership and in improving the environment for the future generation”.