For my second interview, I met with my manager from my internship at the SNU Institute for Global Social Responsibility. She had previously said to me her work was very valuable to her and she felt a sense of purpose in it so I was interested in hearing about it in more detail. From a young age she wanted to do work that helps other people and now has 7-8 years of working in the non-profit sector. At the Institute for Global Social Responsibility she is one of the leaders of the domestic team, so she works on all aspects of developing the domestic volunteering programs. Usually the process starts with researching subtle social issues in different parts of Korea that may not be otherwise receiving much attention. After identifying some issues of interest she will reach out to those communities to see if they are interested in having a volunteering program and if so what kind of help they think they would benefit from.
After deciding on a location for the program, then comes the planning aspect of the program. The office has to advertise the opportunity and recruit SNU students to apply. Then my manager has to work on planning orientation and education for the volunteers, establish contact with the place where the program will occur, and go there to meet with them. Then the office will plan the program in more detail in collaboration with the students who will be participating in the program. Then comes time to actually do the program. I actually got the opportunity to participate in the program that my manager planned this winter. That trip was a mentoring program for middle school students in Gumi (for more details see my post called 공헌유랑단 – Mentoring Program in Gumi). After the program is over, she gathers reflections on the program from the students and sorts out expenses from the trip.
Aside from planning domestic volunteering programs, she also works on some additional projects. A recent project that she has completed is a children’s book called 북극곰이 파래요 (The Polar Bear is Blue) that has the moral of embracing everyone’s differences and living in harmony. This book has already been translated into some other languages and I am currently working on the English translation. The aim of these types of projects is to spread art and culture.
Because my manager is currently working at the Institute for Global Social Responsibility on a two year contract and only has several months left, she has been thinking about what to do afterwards. Lately she has been focused on youth education, and hopes to perhaps get a degree abroad to learn about this sector from a different perspective because the education in this topic in Korea is somewhat limited. She also hopes to possibly go abroad through KOICA (Korea International Cooperation Agency) as a program coordinator.
Even though I am interning at the Institute for Global Social Responsibility, I work on limited projects so I learned a lot about more of the details of the work that my manager and the organization does from our conversation. I also learned about work in the non-profit sector in general, which will be helpful if I decide to go into that sector.