A Beautiful Yonsei Summer of Community Service The heat of the summer is enough to drive people to the mountains and beaches, or perhaps to air-conditioned rooms. However, the Yonsei summer is different. Many Yonseians are spending their summer breaks visiting areas in need of a helping hand and providing service in various forms. Students are demonstrating their servant leadership with their skills by visiting farming communities to help out with the work, providing medical service in areas without access to doctors, mentoring young people in remote areas, and visiting developing countries to provide medical service. We will take a look into the Yonsei summer filled with passion and hard work. 600 Yonseians Visit Farming Communities Every summer, college students are often busier than during the school year, studying foreign languages and taking part in internship programs. The uncertainty of the future and anxiety about employment drive many students to do what they can during the breaks to build an impressive resume. However, some students use their free time for different ends. The undergraduate students who participated in Yonsei’s traditional farming community visits spent 10 days on farms in Nonsan, considering not only of their future career but the future of the wider community. We met Student Association President Seong Chi-Hoon to talk about this year’s event. “We left on June 26 and visited 35 villages in the Nonsan area for ten days. About 600 Yonsei students participated this year, which is a surprisingly large number compared to other universities. Korea University, which has a student body that is similar in size to ours, had a meager 200 students participating.” Yonsei selects an area and continues to visit that area for five consecutive years before moving on to another part of the country. This year was the fourth summer of visiting Nonsan. This policy makes it possible to build a continuous relationship with the communities that the students visit. In fact, some Yonseians who participate annually in this event have formed personal relationships with farmers and their families. “Many people have a misconception of our visits. This isn’t a one-way system where we visit to provide our service, but rather a reciprocal activity in which students and farmers come together to discuss issues that affect us all, such as food shortage and fuel prices.” This year, the farmers’ association raised two issues: the American beef dilemma and food sovereignty. The students were concerned about high tuition rates. During the visit, the days were spent helping out on the fields and the evenings were used for seminars and discussions, where all participants were able to learn about and discuss these issues. Ten Days in Nonsan: Forming A Community The event is in constant evolution. While in the past, the visits were limited to the individual villages, this year, the students were able to visit rice and fertilizer factories in order to understand the agricultural industry. In consideration of the multimedia generation, materials were also presented in video format in addition to the traditional books and handouts. “Seeing beats hearing, and experiencing beats seeing things. We are not just going to these communities to provide extra labor. The most important part is sharing concerns and discussing solutions that will include everyone,” said the student representative. Not “Me” But “We”: Servant Leadership of Passion and Hard Work For many people, summer break is for personal career development, but there are volunteer work needs in this country which may be as significant. By putting aside their individual concerns for their careers and visiting agricultural communities to think about “us”, the 600 Yonseians were able to spend their summer in a way that is different from most. These Yonseians may be the most likely candidates to become the true leaders serving the community and sharing what they have with others. “Yonsei University Hope Fellowship”: Mentoring by College Students Working With Young Students in Gyeongnam and Chungbuk The Yonsei Volunteer Group formed the “Hope Fellowship” with the volunteer groups Yeon-Eoh-Ahl and To-To-Ro to visit young students in remote areas and to give them dreams and hopes for the future. The Hope Fellowship purports to form a social safety net to support students who do not have easy access to educational resources. From June 30 to August 30, Yonsei students who hail from the Gyeongnam area will return home to mentor young students in this area, and from August 4 to 8, the mentoring program will be conducted in Danyang, Chungbuk, for students from families with low incomes. The program provides a system through which college students can meet young students from their hometowns and become a mentor to them, providing advice and instruction regarding academic studies, career prospects, and skills development. Yonsei and Waseda Come Together for Peace in Northeastern Asia Visiting Agricultural Communities and Discussing Peace As the future leaders of Northeast Asia, the students of Yonsei University of Korea and Waseda University of Japan are planning to visit an agricultural community together. From August 4 to 16, students from the two universities will be visiting the northernmost part of South Korea in which civilians are permitted to reside, working on the farms during the day and discussing ways to preserve peace in Northeastern Asia. Reaching Out to the World: Uzbekistan, South Pacific, Cambodia, Mongolia Providing Medical Service Internationally The volunteer work of Yonseians is never out of season or of geographic range. In melting heat or biting cold, in dangerous disaster areas and remote lands, Yonseians share their humanitarian spirit. This summer, Yonseians roamed the world to practice the Yonsei spirit of sharing. Professor Park Beyoung Yun of the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive surgery has visited Uzbekistan for ten years with his team to provide surgery for deformities. Last June, Professor Park’s team performed free surgery for economically disadvantaged patients at a pediatric clinic in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Four specialists, two doctors, and three nurses worked for four days to operate on 44 patients. It was an exhausting schedule, with 12 hours of surgery per day, but the staff pressed on, knowing how important the surgeries were to the patients. Overjoyed at the chance to receive much-needed surgery, the patients, even the children, did not even complain of pain. The Yonsei medical team brought them hope for the future. The College of Dentistry volunteer group, ESSEL, visited the island of Fiji in the South Pacific. Professors, alumni, students, and nurses of the dental college participated in this year’s visit, already in its 16th year. The group of 32 conducted 975 treatments for the natives of the island and paid for the airfare, lodging and all other expenses out of their pockets. On July 19-26, 40 members of the medical and dental schools staff visited Mongolia. This event began in 1993 and has reached its 15th year. The team of 41, led by Professor Yi Choong Kook of the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, included Professor Lee Min Geol of the Department of Dermatology, Professor Lew Dae Hyun of the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, and Professor Kim Ki Deok of the Dept of Comprehensive Treatment, and many more doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and students of the College of Nursing. Together with the medical staff of Mongolia and students of the Mongolian Medical School, the team treated 600 patients in Ulan Bataar and Sukhbataar. The volunteer group of the Youngdong Severance Hospital is planning a trip to Cambodia in mid-August while the Christian student organization of the Colleges of Medicine, Dentistry, and Nursing are providing medical service on islands with no doctors in the Jeonnam area of Korea.