SYLC 2015 - 2016 Half Year Review

It is with my honor to introduce our Seoul Young Leaders Club (SYLC), the first young professionals Rotary club in South Korea that is a satellite club of South Korea’s first club, Seoul Rotary Club.

Within the past six months our club has been active we have already been able to made strides towards becoming one of the world’s top young professionals Rotary clubs that is synonymous with service, fundraising, and professional development.

 

We grew membership to over 30 members, participated in over 10 fundraising and service projects and fundraised 6 million KRW for our club’s fundraising projects and other charities that are working to make our world a better place. Our last fundraising project even made South Korea’s national news on Korean Broadcasting Station (KBS)!

 

Our past service projects have mostly been on the local level where we’ve helped feed the homeless, building homes for low income families, and more.

 

Our first service project was at Seoul City’s homeless shelter (따스한 채움터) where we helped prepare meals for almost 200 homeless (June 2015).

 

Our next service project took us to Jinju where we participated with Habitat for Humanity team members to help build affordable housing for low-income families (October 2015).

 

Shortly after we headed to a Seoul City rehabilitation center in Eunpyeong District (서울특별시립은평의마을) where we helped stock and sort several hundred books and clean the facilities (October 2015).

Our most recent service project we headed to Empathy for Life (생명공감), an animal shelter in Ilsan, Gyeonggi Province where we helped care for shelter animals and clean the facilities (December 2015).

 

In addition to conducting our own service projects we also participated in several other service projects with both Seoul Rotary Club and District 3650.

 

Our SYLC members participated alongside with Seoul Rotary Club members and other District 3650 Rotarians in the second annual Kimchi Making and Sharing Festival that was organized by Seoul City (November 2015).

 

Unlike our club’s service projects which had more of a local impact, our fundraising projects have been more diverse in nature and have had positive international impacts.

 

We co-hosted a charity rock concert with Samdong International at Club Freebird in Hongdae that raised 1.2 million KR for the Xienkhouang-Samdong Friendship School’s library in Saylome Village, Laos (August 2015). The funds we raised helped stock the library with books that are meant for children. The left photo shows our club members, while the right shows children at the school in Laos.

 

For one of our largest events, the Seoul Art Fair, SYLC Charity Art Fair, we raised almost 3 million KRW, of which 50% was donated to local artists (1.5million KRW), 500,000 KRW was donated to We Start’s Blue Bird Volunteer Program, and 200,000 KRW was donated to Minsana’s efforts to feed starving North Korean children. Our club was able to fundraise almost 350,000 KRW for our future service projects (November 2015).

 

Our most recent project involved a free screening of Star Wars: The Force Awakens where we fundraised 1.8 million KRW; 50% was donated to Doctors Without Borders ( 국경없는 의사회) while the other 50% came to our club for future club service projects (December 2015).

 

We aim to develop the next generation of Rotarian leaders. In doing so, we hope to inspire and develop our members’ skills and knowledge.

We’ve hosted prominent professionals to give talks and presentation to our members about their dedication to service. We’ve hosted  Prof. Hyunsik Chang, the immediate past Vice President of Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and Mr. Ha Kyung Choi, President of both the Senior Public Diplomacy Group and Korean Traditional Culture Agency.

 

Our first six months was a testing ground for what we were capable of and what we want to do moving forward. We’ve come to learn and grow as a team that we’re passionate, hardworking, and energetic. Anything is possible with our young professionals members.

 

While there are 5 to 6 months until the Rotary International Seoul Convention in Ilsan KINTEX, we hope to spend the remaining months of FY2015 - 2016 to focus our efforts on a specific problem in Seoul and work to make a real impact on it for the better.

 

Our team is in the process of evaluating project ideas, but we are looking to perform a community assessment as per Rotary International’s Community Assessment Tools, for Baeksa Village (백사마을), in Nowon District of Seoul. The main argument in looking to target Baeksa Village for our future service and fundraising projects is because of its high senior population that is currently living with poor conditions. Over the past few months our club members have identified and agreed that there is a problem with growing old in South Korea where more and more seniors are aging alone and suffering by living with under average standard of living conditions.

 

We look forward to an exciting 2016 where we hope to implement real, impactful projects that are in line with Rotary’s six areas of focus to improve the lives of those living in Baeksa Village.

 

To take a look at what else we’ve done please LIKE and FOLLOW us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/seoulrotaryclubyoungleadersclub/

 

If you might be interested in being a part of helping the elderly living in Baeksa Village, please do not hesitate to contact SYLC President, Raymond Chetti as soon as possible as we are looking to implement projects before the Rotary International Seoul Convention (raychetti@gmail.com).