Volunteerism Less Than Appreciated in Korea
By Kang Hyun-kyung
Staff Reporter
An exhibition of photos on the Peace Corps and Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) volunteers is sending the message that Korea has begun appreciating overseas volunteer work.
Last Friday, KOICA, in collaboration with the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, held an opening ceremony for the joint photo exhibition that captures images of Peace Corps volunteers in Korea from 1966 to 1981 and KOICA volunteers abroad from 1991 to the present, in downtown Seoul.
U.S. Ambassador Kathleen Stephens; Euh Yoon-dae, chairman of the Presidential Council on Nation Branding; and Park Moo-jong, president-publisher of The Korea Times, were among those who participated in the opening ceremony.
Also joining the event were high-ranking officials from KOICA, the Seoul City government and foreign envoys, including Jane Mulryan, deputy chief of mission of the New Zealand Embassy in Seoul.
Prof. Park Jung-sook, goodwill ambassador of KOCIA, was invited to the ceremony as a guest.
After cutting the tape, the guests, along with U.S. diplomats and former Peace Corps volunteers, took a tour of the framed photos displayed near Cheonggye Stream.
The exhibition gives visitors the opportunity to look at images of the country in the past through the perspective of Peace Corps volunteers and gain insight into the work of KOICA volunteers.
The exhibition indicates that Korea is now giving back what it received from the international community when it was striving to rise from the ashes of the 1950-53 Korean War.
Heather Grell, an economic specialist at the embassy, told The Korea Times that many former U.S. Peace Corps volunteers, including herself, are now working with the U.S. government.
Grell served in Guatemala from 1993 to 1996 in a small business banking program. Mark. L. Strege, deputy consul general at the embassy, was dispatched to Mali as a Peace Corps volunteer.
During the photo tour, Edward Reed, the Asia Foundation's country representative in Korea, recalled that only two types of Peace Corps volunteers worked in Korea. They taught English or worked with clinics as medical support, he said.
Reed taught English at Konkuk University in Seoul when he was a Peace Corps volunteer.
Unlike in the U.S., overseas volunteer work has rarely led to new careers in Korea. Former KOICA volunteers have not been treated with due respect in the job market, they said.
One former KOICA volunteer, who asked not to be named, told The Korea Times that many young people like herself pursuing careers in international cooperation apply for overseas volunteering opportunities.
But, she said, very few of them get jobs befitting of their skill and first-hand experience in the less developed countries.
She worked with a Latin American country as a conservation worker in the 1990s.
``There are few jobs available for former KOICA volunteers. Some extend their duties under the KOICA program with hope that they may get the right job if they get more experience at their duty locations,'' she said.
The joint photo exhibition signals that now is the time for Korea to consider implementing incentive measures for overseas volunteers with skills and first-hand experience in employment.
The exhibition will continue at the same venue for two weeks and then move to Incheon and 13 other cities where American Peace Corps members worked.