Volunteer Street Marketing and Fundraising
for single mothers in Seoul South Korea
The Project
After first year, I really had my mind set on doing a six week international AIESEC working or volunteer internship. I was originally intending on going to Brazil but because of VISA issues, instead went to Korea. The project was originally to tackle the broader subject of gender related issues. We had a diverse group of interns from many different parts of the world. We finally decided that the mistreatment of Single Mothers was something we could all agree was a problem and also something that was extremely relevant to South Korea.
Culture Shock
Before tackling any of the issues, I had to deal with facing an extremely different culture and one in which most of the population did not speak english. Part of the reason for these internationally oriented AIESEC internships was to engage issues from many different perspectives. As a Canadian, I was definitely more progressive than a lot of other countries but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. As the topic was gender/sex related issues, we had people from conservative religious countries emphasizing chastity until marriage. Conversely, I had to try to explain the concept of Tinder.
Resources
This trip really opened up my eyes to both the support and the hardships that Socially Oriented Enterprises face. We were able to reach out to a lot of different organizations like SESnet (The Social Enterprise Support Netowork in Korea) and they were willing to hear us out when it came to our ideas and vision, but just like any other business, they had to question feasibility, financials and long-term planning.
Results
We originally intended on using business development and entrepreneurship to solve these problems but figured out really quickly that that getting those kinds of startups running are far beyond the scope of what 6 interns in 6 weeks are capable of. We ended up using short term street marketing and fundraising which did pull a lot of traffic simply because it's interesting to see so many foreigners from all over the world uniting over the same thing. We did raise some money and we did educate some people but there was that underlying feeling that for all of our efforts, we barely made a drop in a massive ocean.
Key Takeaways
All in all, it was a very sobering experience. It gave me perspective to see the perspectives of people all over the world.
It was a wakeup call that real, lasting, societally impactful change requires a lot more planning, resources and commitment.
A dream alone isn't enough, even if it is one everyone can agree with.
But to me, the trip as a whole was in no means a failure.
If anything, I now have something to strive towards.
To one day, make that change happen.