KOICA, Remote Volunteer Activity Performance Sharing Meeting... Program Established by Selecting 8 Occupations

Selected by Real-Time Voting... Yang Yerim, Kindergarten Teacher Trainer in Myanmar

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] KOICA (Korea International Cooperation Agency) announced on the 17th that it held the ‘KOICA 2020 E-volunteering Performance Sharing Meeting’ on the afternoon of the 16th at the KOICA headquarters in Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do, sharing cases of outstanding volunteers’ remote volunteer activities.

E-volunteering is a digital overseas volunteer program promoted by KOICA using Korea’s IT technology to allow overseas volunteers who were urgently repatriated by April due to the worsening COVID-19 situation to continue their activities domestically.

Since June this year, KOICA has built a digital platform capable of performing remote volunteering and selected eight occupations in which KOICA volunteers have strengths to establish a remote volunteering program system. Customized non-face-to-face education such as the ‘Jjinjeongbo Ssaksseuri Class’ was provided to volunteers to improve the quality of remote volunteer activities.

The sharing meeting was held in compliance with COVID-19 quarantine rules, hosted by YouTuber Komiko, a former KOICA volunteer, and was attended remotely by about 200 volunteers and related personnel.

At the awards ceremony conducted through real-time voting by remote volunteers, the grand prize went to volunteer Yang Ye-rim, who conducted volunteer activities educating kindergarten teachers in Myanmar. Volunteers participating remotely in the performance sharing meeting shared their opinions in real time, saying, “Although we were in Korea, it felt as if we were on site,” and “It seems that more creative activities have emerged due to COVID-19.”

Song Woong-yeop, Director of KOICA’s Global Partnership Headquarters, said, “Through the performance sharing meeting, I felt that the remote volunteering project, which was promoted as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, could be established not just as a simple alternative but as an innovative and independent program in the post-COVID era,” adding, “We will further improve this project to establish it as a branch of volunteer activities.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.