Think Globally, Act Locally: The 3rd Creative Leaders in Seoul

     Adolescents’ voices and powers are constantly growing. MIZY center (Seoul Youth Center for Cultural Exchange)’s program, Creative Leaders in Seoul (CLIS) is the one of the programs that can help youths raise their voices in international exchange. From the past, the word ‘international exchange’ was thought as a special word for those who are fluent in English or frequent traveles abroad. However, CLIS, mainly hosted by MIZY center and conducted by MIZY Youth Council Members, diverts attention away from the past and advances a new way. During 4 days, from February 1^st to February 4^th, the 63 selected high school students who are interested in international exchange were gathered up, pitched as teams thematically and created international exchange program regarding these 9 topics: Water, Disease, Money, Pen, Eyes, Color, Home, Dance and Crack. By giving presentations of the organized program, 3 winning teams were awarded: Korean Commission for UNESCO Secretary General Award, the Grand Prize, and Congeniality Award. If the realization of the awarded programs is highly feasible, it may be considered for coming into effect.

<Day 1: a lecture and organizing each team’s progress>

     As Feb 1^st was the first day of the camp, the participants mainly spent their time listening to the lecture and organizing their thoughts on what they had discussed about their topics before the camp. They had brainstormed their theme and tried to find the relationship between their topic and international exchange by having advanced meetings for weeks before the camp. In this situation, CLIS offered a lecture which could further elaborate on one of the main subjects matter: international exchange. The first lecture, given by Gi-tae Park (Leader of Voluntary Agency Network of Korea) enlightened the ideas of creative international exchange by illustrating how VANK itself managed to do international exchange by using various methods and materials

     After the helpful lecture time was over, through “Mid-workshop”, each team showed how working as a group brings creative solutions into play. They introduced interpretations of their own topics throughout discussions before the camp, and found the link that holds two main keywords: their motif and international exchange, together.

 

Following is the Day 1’s interview (2/1) :

 

1. How was your first day?

[Yeon-ju Cho/ Water] Before the camp started, we had several on-line meetings, but I realized that talking face-to-face is pretty much different from the on-line works. In the process, I leave much to be desired. However, we will further garnish our international exchange program through tomorrow’s field trip.

 

2.     Can you describe your plans in words?

[Min-a Kim/ Crack] Saving isolated people slipped through crack.

 

3.     How’s your teamwork?

[Ok-jin Yang/ Color] Very harmonious. We respect each other which make our teamwork smooth.

<Day 2: Field trip>

In order to increase specialty, each team managed to do outdoor activities. Any kind of field trip was available in Seoul such as but not limited to: visiting organization, seeing exhibitions, surveying, and street interviewing. The following is a video clip that shows what the participants had done and had learned so far during a field trip.

<Day 3: get ready for a presentation/ recreational activity>

     After several meetings in the camp were over, recreational program “Question Mark” was prepared for the participants. The time was offered for students not only to make their own teamwork more effective for the next day’s presentation but also to get close to other teams by doing physical activities. Activities, including “knowing secret friend” and “talk in the dark” were brilliant ideas from MIZY Youth Council Members for student to enjoy the camp better.

As this was close to the wrap-up day about a program for MIZY Youth Council Members, I did a brief interview with Mr. Inhwan Ko, the president of Youth Council Member.

 

1. What is the reason you keep doing the camp CLIS in different ways, as a participant, mentor, and manager? (Mr. Ko was the 1^st CLIS camper and now he is the general manager of the 3^rd CLIS)

 

When 2010, the 1^st CLIS was held, I had an immature fantasy about the word ‘international’ as this word looked pretty incredible to me. So, I joined the camp and after 2 months, I wanted to become a MIZY Youth Council Member in order to understand about international exchange better and organize the camp CLIS. However, I faced a lot of operational problem such as mentoring system. As there were a lot of mentors and as their ages were similar to participants, feedback was not much organized, rather it was more close to bouncing personal thoughts. Also, the topic itself had a lot of problems. When I was a 1^st CLIS participant, I was in education team. However, education itself can apply to almost everything: methodologically and conceptually. For example, environment design. The subject environment design cannot stick to one subject as environment is closely related to methodology while design is more conceptual. So, I really wanted to solve these basic, but hardest problems. However, at that time, I was a senior in high school and it was tough to me. Now, I thought that I can somehow contribute more to the camp as a university student, this is somewhat formal, and the real reason is: the CLIS is so attractive. There was a prominent figure called Kyung-hyun Kim who is currently working in ODA, who used to be the lecturer for the 1^st and the 2^nd CLIS. He suggested the idea that we can also do international exchange domestically. Sounds weird but I think is much progressed thought. One of the reasons why we do international exchange is to realize global issues and internalize those problems to solve it. Going to abroad and embracing foreign issues cannot be the most active part in international exchange. That’s what I realized and pretty much convinced by Mr. Kim’s theory. Afterwards, I saw a lot of students who were agreeing with me.

 

2.     What is the most special factor in the 3^rd CLIS?

 

Change of the topics seems to be the most extreme makeover. As you can see, topics are changed a lot. The 1^st and 2^nd CLIS used to have the team name performing art, environment, design, education etc. but now, we have 9 one-word topics like water, crack, and money. You know what to do with previous topics. For example, environment. If the topic, environment is given, all you have to think about is to protect environment. So pretty much things are fixed. Youth Council Members were complaining about this problem. What we wanted to do is to make people to have their own creative ideas. With this regard, we came with the MDGs (The Millennium Development Goals), but still they were fixed goals. Worldwide, we know these goals are needful, much to be achieved, and necessary. Indications, programs, campaign, are all set globally, and those things are fairly done by United Nations, not by Youths. We rather thought that the most creative things are from daily life not from somewhere else. Actually, this idea was pretty much supported by the chief of MIZY center, Ms. Young-ju Kim, and she came with the idea of ‘water’ for example, Water, is very useful and essential resource. Water is also a core cause of the conflicts and still many people are combating globally in terms of uneven distribution. Understanding water is also one way to understand one of the global issues: conflicts. Everyone was so shocked when the chief was coming with these ideas. We pondered, how we come up with these ideas, and that we came up with one word in order to be concise and creative. Youth Council Members suggested various candidates such as: pen, light, gun, and culled into 9 words. To wrap up, the fact: difference in topics itself is not that much amazing. We all know it’s just changed. But the background is meaningful to understand 3^rd camp better.

 

3.     Any difficulties or inconveniences?

 

I was only focusing on making the 3^rd camp distinguished by the previous campers. So I ignored the lessons that I could gain from the preceding camps. View of the participants is different from director. It seems that everything is fine and smoothly, but the view of manager, we had some communication problems within the instructor and Council Members. We had a very wide range of age, 17-20, which seems to have distinct roles according to their age. However, individual roles were not clear and fixed. If the situation is given, sometimes role should be flexible in responding. But there were some miscommunication during camp. So what happened, we were so adjusted and familiar with our fixed roles, and we didn’t realize that young members can also do the better jobs. We did not ignore them, but misinterpreted and misunderstood their roles. I could see that these were the communication problem in this camp than the previous ones which is of course the consequences of overlooking lessons from the past. I was only focused on making an innovative, funny, creative, and exciting camp and less paying attention on communication. It had a positive point though. Campers enjoyed in terms of directors of this camp. In words of one syllable, it was not good governance, rather it was a good program.



<Day 4: a day of presentation and farewell>

This year, unlike the previous CLISs, the MIZY Youth Council Members adopted the new system called “Senior Evaluation Group” consisting of the 1^st and the 2^nd CLIS participants. The 2^nd CLIS had a mentoring system for each team with the mentors who contributed the 1^st CLIS. However, the Youth Council Members abolished the mentoring system and set the new method in order to increase independence of the teamwork and to evaluate programs with fairness.

For the evaluation, there were 3 prominent figures in international exchange form 50, MIZY Youth Council Members form 30, and the Senior Evaluation Group form 20 of appraising each team’s program plans and presentations.

Each team’s presentation was formed in different ways for 10 minutes, such as acting as if the created program actually happened or illustrating their programs through props. After their performances were over, each team had Q&A time for their programs from the judges on the spot.

The result of the camp turned out to have 3 winners: Pen, Disease, and Eyes. However, regardless of the results, all of contributors have done great jobs and it stimulated the participants’ way of looking and thinking about how rather than international exchange requiring assured English skills and being frequent travelers, it can be happen by creative ideas. The camp CLIS truly was a useful schedule for students to have wider views, and they may find it can serve as “a step ahead to become a global leader”.

*Please visit MIZY Center’s webpage: www.mizy.net to see more information about CLIS.

2013 the 4^th CLIS is expected to be held on too. You can register for the 4^th CLIS on January 2013 through on-line (only on-line application is available), so please keep your eye on the notice!