Despite the heat, many Yonseians are spending the summer performing community service, sharing their passion and skills with schoolchildren and the disadvantaged and disabled, both overseas and in Korea. These volunteer activities include helping out at remote farms, teaching and mentoring elementary, middle, and high school students, and providing free medical services abroad.

Hope Expedition Education Camp

Since 2008, Yonsei has operated the Hope Expedition Education Camp during the summer, providing mentoring and leadership development to middle school and high school students from low-income communities. On July 21, the Yonsei student volunteers began visiting schools in the Chungnam and Kyungnam regions, where they will work with over 1000 students from fifteen different schools. Each individual Hope Education Camp lasts five days and four nights and consists of creativity workshops, an introduction to college majors, group mentoring and study skills sessions, and leadership training.

Yonsei and Waseda Students Volunteer at Farms Affected by Land Mines

For the past eight years, student volunteers from Yonsei University and Waseda University have joined forces to help out on farms affected by land mines, an unfortunate vestige of the Korean War. In August, the volunteers will visit Haemaru Village, located in Jindong, Paju-si. While there, they will be educated about the continuing effects of land mines upon farms in this country, and they will develop leadership skills through a variety of volunteer activities designed to assist farmers disabled by land mines.
According to a 2011 study, there are 278 South Koreans who have been disabled or otherwise impacted by land mines. To address this troubling issue, Yonsei Chaplain Cho Jae-gook has taken a number of steps to provide aid and assistance to land mine victims, organizing the Peace Share Association and supporting the Yonsei and Waseda student volunteers. In the words of Dakeiuchi Yoiichi, a Waseda volunteer from last year: “I was very shocked to discover, through meeting such land mine victims, that the wounds of the Korean War still persist to this day.” He added: “I believe that ‘soft power’ is integral to a peaceful relationship between our two countries, and this has been a valuable volunteer experience.”

Yonsei Education Camp (“Yonsei Edu-Camp”)

From July 28 to August 1, Yonsei’s Student Activities Association is conducting Yonsei Edu-Camps at fifteen elementary schools in rural areas, attracting around 600 student campers. According to Yonsei Edu-Camp’s Student Director, Kim Yeon-soo: “Yonsei University’s Edu-Camp program aims to improve the social abilities of elementary school students through group play activities and creative thinking workshops. The program will have a synergetic effect with the participation of Yonsei students who want to practice the spirit of sharing.”

Yonsei Students and Faculty Participate in Overseas Volunteer Programs

A number of Yonsei students and faculty members are also taking part in volunteer programs abroad this summer. One such program is the Yonsei-BonSarang Overseas Volunteer Project, which is supported by the BonSarang Foundation and is sending volunteers to work at a daycare center in Mongolia. From June 25 to July 4, Gangnam Severance Hospital’s Missionary Volunteers Association provided free medical services in and around Katmandu, Nepal. While there, the volunteers collaborated with the local Nepalese organization Hunger Counterplan. In Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, forty volunteers from the College of Dentistry provided free dental care July 6 through 13. And between August 13 and 18, the Medical Missionary Center and its volunteers will be offering free medical services in Cambodia.