Greetings from the President
It has been over a decade since I first opened an online community called ‘Unification Culture’ at Naver Café (http://cafe.naver.com/uckr). We witnessed three summit meetings between the South and North Koreas in 2018, 10.4 summit meeting in 2007 and 6.15 summit meeting in 2000; and the nation was filled with hopes of achieving unification in the foreseeable future. However, recent developments of the inter-Korean relation seem to unravel a scenario that is distant from what has been expected.
I have always been interested in unification movements that are led by ordinary citizen rather than top-down government-led policies. As much as I harbor a deep respect for the tiresome and dreadful paths smoothened by our senior activists, I have been drawn to the ideas for casual approaches that can invite more participants to such cultural events as sports, films and concerts.
The first project that the Unification Culture Corporation has set out is to send 10 thousand soccer balls to North Korean children hoping that they will instill dreams, hopes and courage among the children. This project is inspired by the late Chung Joo-Yung, the founder of Hyundai Group, who crossed the truce line with a herd of 1,001 cattle in 1998, which is called “Cattle Diplomacy”.
The Soccer Balls for Hope Project will be organized in a festive format where many volunteers can participate with relatively small amount of fund. What we are focusing on is not gigantic propagandas but rather on practical but attainable unification campaign in our daily lives. We are dedicated to add supports, however small they may seem, that will definitely help Korea to step toward unification, and all our efforts will be centered on ‘the culture: the power of unlimited imagination.’
My ultimate goal in life is to witness the reunified Korea with my own eyes and to be able to speak out loud that I have been a part of the achievement. It is a great honor and pleasure to share the joy of unification with everyone who would participate in the journey.
Thank you very much
Yee, Sang -Yeob
