[MANNAM Volunteer Association - Busan North] Semiannual Awards 2013

In Busan, every year  there are a lot of international festivals where many people from all around the world come and enjoy together. Recently, there was a Global Gathering, which was held by Busan Foundation for International Activities (Busan Global Center) in APEC Nurimaru. And every fall, there are two big festivals in Busan: Busan International Film Festival and Busan Fireworks Festival. 

In this city of festivals, we are going to have the very special awards! 
It will be held in Lotte department store Concert Hall in Gwangbok branch which is on 10th floor of the building. We will reflect our activities during last 6 months and we want to express our gratitude to people and organizations that help MANNAM Busan North branch's activities and want to award all our model volunteers and sports teams. 

But, it is not the end. We don't want to make a boring ceremony where the awarded only feel happy and enjoy. We prepare a starting ceremony and among our members, a new K-Pop dancing group was made!!! They are preparing dancing performances. Korean class members, and teachers are also preparing a special performance together. And, the highlight video of our activities finally you can watch! 

While this is the end of half of 2013, this is the starting of the second half. 
So we hope this will be a good starting point. In addition, there is going to be an announcement of a new 2013 volunteering campaign that we will work on during the half of the year! It's like a season II of '더(The) PEACE'!!! You can get more details when the volunteering team manager make a presentation on that day. 

We are preparing hard now and really feeling happy during the preparation. 
Unlike other events, this one all staffs and members are enjoying. I saw many Korean class members also happily dancing together! That's why we have been learning each other's language and culture, discussing, volunteering, and working together to make our community better-organized during 6 months, 

I also really thank all people and all members who are volunteering with MANNAM Volunteer Association, feeling proud of all and myself! 

Look forward this Sunday! 

The Box of 'LIKES' by MANNAM The PEACE #1. INDIGO SOWON

The first one I picked from the box of 'Likes' is INDIGO SOWON in Namcheon, Busan. Most readers don't know well, but the reason that I chose this is Indigo Sowon gave me fresh ideas and introduced many books to help make The PEACE.

Indigo Sowon is a nonprofit humanities bookstore for youth founded by Korean human right activist, Aram Hur. The first time that I met Indigo was when they held 'Indigo Youth Book Fair 2010.' Its poster has one elephant, and the title was '가치를 다시 묻다 (Re-evaluation of Values.)'  It caught my eyes and I met many valuable books and activists for human values.

Since then, I have subscribed its newsletter and often visited the homepage or the bookstore in Namcheon. There are many activities and useful sources for humanities and youth. Especially, many books of humanities that we cannot discover when just dropping by usual bookstores. Of course, most of books are in Korean language, so I am sorry for it.

Before when I held the 1st MANNAM The PEACE talk concert, I scrapped news and read other books related to peace movements and at that time, lists of books on Indigo website helped me a lot and I got inspiration from them. One of them is <Enough Blood Shed: 101 Soluntion to Violence, Terror, and War> of Mary-Wynne Ashford and Guy Dauncey. Mary-Wynne Ashford came to Busan for the 2nd UN Youth Peace Camp co-hosted by the Commemorative Organization for World Peace and Indigo Sowon. She was a guest speaker and 220 teenagers participated in the symposium. I missed her speech but bought her book and it really helped me and team members a lot. Next week, I will introduce about her book.

Indigo Sowon has offered the place where youth can share their ideas freely.

They do not learn and study certain subjects according to curriculum, instead,

 they are discussing human, war, terror, peace, environment, poverty, equality, education, etc. and express their ideal and ideas. Through it, they even publish their magazine 'INDIGO+ing' not just learning and accepting the established knowledge. And since 2010, 'INDIGO', the international version of 'INDIGO+ing' written in English has been published. The magazine is published once every two months.

I was surprised to see many youth think about human seriously and discuss about issues which we face today on the earth. And thank Indigo Sowon for making the place where we re-discover books which are hidden but valuable to read, encouraging Korean youth to think about human values, and doing many conferences and symposiums for teenagers. People who run Indigo Sowon, including Aram Hur, they might know that youth have power to make change the society and move world. Their thinking is more flexible than adults.

When preparing the 2nd The PEACE talk concert, Rodrigo talked about the importance of education for youth. He had a chance to join the program which connects international students in universities with elementary or middle schools, and makes them teach their culture or other worldwide issue to children. He saw many students show open mind to any culture and they are active to understand the cultural differences. Then, he said he believes education is very important to make world peace.

In that point, Indigo Sowon, the special humanities bookstore for youth, are doing really great things to make world more beautiful to live together and they are establishing world peace. After World Peace Festival, MANNAM formed networks with many international youth organizations. And this year, MANNAM initiated MIYC with international youth organizations, dreaming great projects and programs with many international youth organizations. When designing programs, Indigo Sowon's ideas or past events also can help us set up, I think. :) One thing that I want more is that if there are more active programs beyond just discussion, it will be definitely great!

And all readers who live in Korea or has a chance to visit Busan, Korea! I recommend to visit Indigo Sowon or visit their website (it's linked their 2010 youth book fair Eng. version)
If you get off Namcheon subway station and go upstairs through Exit #1, you can find Indigo bookstore in 5 minitues walk. If you get lost, contact to me, haha :) Oh, plus, in front of Indigo, there is a cafeteria called Eco-topia, where you can get fresh foods of which ingredients are eco-friendly. And you can't meet Indigo on Monday like a public library or museum!