“The thousand won you share can be the cornerstone for reunification. Fellow school mates, let’s make reunification happen with our two hands.”
From September 14, YU (President Noh Seok-kyun) held a campaign to collect reunification preparation funds. The YU student body and the Unification Issue Research Center (Chief Kim Young-soo) went on a ‘Thousand Won Sharing for Reunification’ donation campaign. As of October 2, a total of 6,715,400 won collected. Considering that the donations were made by young students, this is not a small amount of money.
For this three-week-long campaign, the student body and the Unification Issue Research Center posted a message on the school homepage and Facebook asking for volunteers, and donation boxes were installed in areas with high pedestrian traffic such as the library and bank. They also made a Reunification Sharing Fund account so that anybody can make donations.
They expressed a strong passion for reunification by delaying the charity drives while the ‘2015 Dokdo Protection Hip Hop Festival’, which was held together by the student body and Social Run To You (CEO Kim Tae-woo, 2011 YU student body president), was held in the evening of the 3rd at the outdoor auditorium. In result, 2 million won was raised on site to end the Reunification Sharing Campaign.
YU student body president Kim Su-hyeon (26, School of Architecture, senior) said, “It was disappointing that our generation does not have much wish for reunification as we did not directly feel the sadness of being separated,” and added, “Preparing for reunification that will surely come, whether in our generation or the next, is meaningful and must be done. That is why we planned the ‘Thousand Won Reunification Sharing’ campaign. I hope that this campaign will make us desire reunification more.”
Professor Kim Young-soo, who is the chief of the YU Unification Issue Research Center that co-planned this campaign, also worked hard in this campaign explaining the goal of this campaign and urging participation in class and to fellow professors.“ Professor Kim explained, ”Reunification is the biggest dream of our people, but we must make preparations for this to be a ‘blessing’.“ He also added, ”When just a thousand won is gathered at a time, and this continues, an expressway to unification will open wide.“
The YU student ambassadors, ‘YU Love’ also chipped in for this campaign. During recess from class, they engaged in street PR activities with the student body and installed and operated a donation tent in front of the central library. Choi Han-geul (25, Department of Business Administration, senior) who gladly made a donation on his way to the central library said, “Though I never gave reunification much thought, I was moved to see my school mates engaging in such campaign. I believe that when not just members of YU, but everyone in Korea contribute just a little bit each, it will become a path of hope to reunification.”
YU President Noh Seok-kyun also sent a letter to the faculty during the campaign encouraging participation. In the letter, Mr. Noh said, “I am very proud of our students voluntarily making the Reunification Sharing Fund Campaign in hopes and preparation for reunification, which is the biggest dream of our people. I hope that we take this opportunity to think about the future of the unified Korea.” In result, school employees donated as little as ten thousand won to as much as two hundred thousand won to the Reunification Sharing Fund account, and over 50 YU professors also participated in preparation for reunification.
The donations raised through this campaign by the YU student body and the Unification Issue Research Center donated all of the funds to the Reunification and Sharing Foundation.
<See Article> Chosun Ilbo (Oct 8, 2015) http://news.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2015/10/08/2015100800378.html
