Korean submission to the Government Forum, 20th IAVE World Volunteer Conference, Panama 2008

  FORUM PROPOSAL 

• Name: Mr. Kim Jin-Soo
• Position & Title: Civil Sector Cooperation Team, Senior Manager
• Organization / Institution: Ministry of Government and Home Administration (MOGAHA) / Government of Republic of Korea
• Full Address: Royal Building Rm. # 512, Sejongmadanggil 17, Jongro-gu,
• Seoul, Korea 110-050 (110-760)
• E-mail: kijis@mogaha.go.kr
• Phone: 82-2-2100-1771            Fax: 82-2-2100-1762
• Current Status of IAVE: Non member
• Forum topic category: Forum 5: Volunteering: the Role of Government

Profile: Mr. Kim Jin-Soo has worked on this team for 2 years.  He has been in charge of promoting volunteerism nation wide and has been instrumental in designing the 5 year governmental plan to promote volunteering.  He also serves as the coordinator of the working committee under the National Committee for Promoting Volunteering at the Prime Minister’s Office.

Abstract:  Korea passed “The Basic Act on Promoting Volunteer Services” in 2005 and enacted the law in 2006.  According to the law, the Ministry of Government and Home Administration (MOGAHA) initiated to collect volunteering promoting plans from every government ministries and integrated as the 5 year governmental plan promoting Volunteering in Korea. Procedures and contents of the Basic Act, especially how the final agreement was made agreement among various stake holders including several ministries as well as several non-profit organizations.  As a result, some problems that we are facing now will be explained as well as effort to solve them. The 5 year plan which has been implemented from this year will also be introduced. 

In addition, recent volunteer effort to clean oil spills in west coast of Korean peninsular will be shown in slides. Volunteers formed human chain and fought against tides of spilled oil reaching the shores.  During the last three months more than 1 million volunteers worked more than three million hours to clean sea shores and helped victims in the area. Still, the volunteer tides continue to visit the affected area. Volunteers vowed to continue till the shores are clean and restore the original states.  This massive volunteering in such a short period never happened in Korean history nor in any country.  The Korean government is plan to report this volunteering to UNEP.