Agreement with Ministry of Justice, Gyeongbuk-do, Kyowon, SK Telecom, SK Broadband, Center for Multi-Cultural Korea
[Feb 17, 2010]
There are currently 8,500 multi-cultural families within Gyeongbuk-do. Children from multi-cultural families that entered elementary school has grown from 900 two years ago to 2,700 this year. It is predicted that if educational gaps and cultural conflicts which multi-cultural families and their children are suffered are neglected, it will become a big social issue in the future.
Accordingly, Yeungnam University (president Lee, Hyo-soo) has stepped up to help the children of multi-cultural families who are marginalized both socially and culturally. It is pursuing the 'Gyeongsangbuk-do Multi-Cultural Family Children Online Mentoring Program' with the central government, local government, companies and social organizations.
'Online mentoring' is where a mentor (university student) and mentee (children of multi-cultural families) meet 1:1 through internet video chats to conduct various activities such as education in Korean, basic education, consulting on life and studies, cultural experiences, etc.
For this, Yeungnam University met with representatives from the Ministry of Justice (minister Lee, Gwi-nam), Gyeongsangbuk-do (governor Kim, Gwan-yong), Kyowon (chairman Jang, Pyeong-soon), SK Telecom (CEO Jung, Man-won), SK Broadband (CEO Park, In-sik), Center for Multi-Cultural Korea (co-president Buddhist Priest Boseon and Kim, Ui-jeong), Maeil Economy Newspaper (chairman Jang, Dae-hwan) at the 12th floor conference room of Maeil Economy Newspaper on the 17th. At this signing ceremony, Jin, Yung, a member of the National Assembly Multi-Cultural Forum (Grand National Party) also participated to pledge support from the National Assembly. In addition, the multi-national choir 'Rainbow Korea', made up of elementary school children from multi-cultural families of 7 nations held a performance (photo below).
This mentoring program will be held from March to November. For this, 97 students of Yeungnam University and 3 university students of multi-cultural families will be selected as mentors to provide 1:1 online customized school support and consulting. The university mentors will receive education such as 'understanding multi-cultural societies' and 'school mentoring for multi-cultural family children', and provide mentoring for 32 hours per semester. The university mentors will receive educational volunteer service credits and work-study scholarships.
100 mentees will be selected from elementary school students of the lower income bracket among multi-cultural families residing in Gyeongsangbuk-do. The university mentors will help children in areas of their weakness and motivate their will to study, and will act as big sisters and brothers who can talk with and consult the children on their difficulties in school life.
At this signing ceremony, Kwak, Chang-hoon (24, male), a sophomore in the Yeungnam University Department of Sociology, represented the mentors and made a speech saying "There should be no children who are socially discriminated and alienated because of their difference in color and appearance," and added "I hope to be their big brother and always help them to be warmly welcomed in the Korean society."
Yeungnam University expects to help multi-cultural family children who are facing difficulties in their school lives. In the case of multi-cultural families, because mothers who are not perfect in Korean nurtures the children, they have lack of Korean language abilities making it difficult to adapt to school life.
Furthermore, through this program, Yeungnam University aims at establishing a model case for the private-government-industrial-academic cooperation governance for multi-cultural education, and provide an opportunity to promote educational services for multi-cultural family children.
In addition, among the 'Global Frontier 10-3-10' strategy to become the top 10 in the world for 3 areas within 10 years, it is planning to further promote the CVC Plan (Cultural Value Creation Plan) through comparative cultural research.
Lee, Hyo-soo, president of Yeungnam University, stated "In order for our society to become a multi-cultural society, we need to have an open mind about different cultures, and provide legal, cultural, social, economical and educational consideration and systemized support" while adding "Yeungnam University will play a pivotal role in this project based on private-government-industrial-academic partnership to make our society a more 'opened society' and to make 'different' a new growth engine for our society."
For the success of this project, Yeungnam University will be in charge of selection and education of mentors, as well as operation and administration, with the Center for Multi-Cultural Korea and supervise outdoor experience events and camping. In addition, it will provide expenses together with Gyeongsangbuk-do to enhance educational performance and for the smooth operation of the project. Furthermore, the Ministry of Justice will provide 200 PCs to children of multi-cultural families for the online mentoring, and is scheduled to support on-site experience based educational programs to help their understanding on the legal culture. Participation of companies is also active and Kyowon will provide a year's supply of home-study materials for helping with the basic education of multi-cultural family children, and SK Telecom and SK Broadband will provide free internet services and computer peripheral devices for online education.
On this, professor Park, Seung-woo (Department of Sociology), director of the Yeungnam University Multi-cultural Education Research Center, stated "Through pre-education and the mentoring process, university mentors will have a higher understanding for multi-cultural families and become more sensitive for different cultures, and elementary school students will receive educational services for basic studies in order to grow to become human resources needed in the multi-cultural society," and added "in order to further enhance the effects of learning through online mentoring, we will unfold various events such as offline studying and experience-based programs, and will help to enhance the emotional intimacy between the mentors and mentees and to make online learning more enjoyable."
