Our group's first field visit was to Daejeon Culture and Education Center. We didn't know what to expect, what kind of people will be there and what kind of stuff did they prepare for us.
I was a little disappointed that there were no students in the center since they are all attending school in the morning. But then we had the most amazing experience with the volunteers who work there!
The Center was set up to help the youth who has some family, violence, drinking, society, crime problems. The main cause is to make them feel loved and then motivate them to study and reach their dreams. The Center is a non-profitable organization so the founder sometimes gives her own money to keep the Center running. They also offer a free dinner for the kids since they don't have one at home.
All of the teachers are volunteers. The teachers we met are a high school student, soldier, retired university professor, engineer and others. They are not pushing the youth to learn, they only encourage them and then the youth slowly gets the will to learn because they see others are doing it too.
With their help a lot of students who didn't attend school graduated (in Korea everyone can take the "graduation exam"). There was a guy of 19 years old that went to prison because of violence, so he couldn't attend high school at that time. Because of the friendship of one very commited volunteer he managed to graduate and nowadays he attends a nurse school. He is still comming back to the Center and helping youth like that one volunteer had helped him :)
The volunteers in the Center taught us how to make traditional Korean "sushi" called kimbap. We made lots of it and then took it to the elders home :)
Our last visit was to the city hall. They were not expecting us but still gave us some leaflets and rice cakes and then lent us a van so we didn't have to walk 25 minutes to the bus station. This is a perfect example of selfless Korean hospitality! I really love these people :)
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