Winners of 7th Korea Multicultural Youth Awards - Special awards

Special jury award

Hong improves with self-directed learning

Hong Ye-seul, a sixth grader at Uijeongbu Singok Elementary School in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province, has strong self-motivation for study and other activities.

She says that while other people think she is good at English thanks to her Filipina mother, she makes more effort than others to improve her English skills. She is a diligent student who tries hard to improve her academic ability.

Hong surprised the teachers and students when she read 20 books every week, and 100 books over the summer vacation. Such massive reading helped her to think logically.

With her challenging spirit, she entered an English speaking contest organized by the school and received an excellence award.

Hong, who hopes to become a doctor, is also a model student who empathizes with and listens to other people. She is sensitive and caring for students with disabilities and listens carefully to the stories of others who are sometimes alienated from the class.

Semoon Chang award

Na's linguistic talent shines in all places

Na Su-jin, 18, a second grader at Ansan International Business High School in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, received the top prize for her fluent Russian at a foreign language contest organized by the Foreign Language Examination Center under Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in 2018.

With her linguistic talent, she hopes to become a translator in the future. Alongside her Russian skills learned from her mother who is from Russia, she is studying English hard as well for her future job, although she already has good English skills, getting good scores in business English and English speaking classes.

Na is a model student for fellow classmates, showing full responsibility for class affairs, and is popular among her friends for caring for others. She cleans boards and floors in the classroom to keep it tidy, which shows her service spirit for the community, and has earned multiple school awards.

Asian Friends Hope Scholarship

Sa believes multicultural background is special

Sa Sun-gung, a fourth grader at Seonghwan Elementary School in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, believes her multicultural identity is special and advantageous rather than thinking it as making her different from other students.

She is currently the class president and cares about all of the members in her class. She led a campaign to get everyone to greet each other so that no one feels left out.

Sa shows her versatile skills through entering drawing and literary contests. Filled with curiosity, she does not hesitate to ask questions and regards hard assignments as new tasks to overcome.

With her writing skills, she won an excellence award in a national literary contest hosted by the Ministry of Unification.

She takes care of her younger sister and helps two older siblings when her Korean father and Vietnamese mother are working.