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One day, a student in Korea, Jeongki, receives a New Media Education kit that is full of basic tools for online visual communication. The kit will include a video recorder, laptop, editing software, filming tutorial game, and Internet router. Jeongki creates a short video about him and his dogs and visits our universal video pen pal web space. He will be intrigued by its interface that is based on videos, pictures, and symbols that don’t require him to read or translate. Jeongki searches for a potential pen pal based on his preferences and tags of his video. Also our web space gives him recommendations based on his location, age, or culture. Jeongki finds that Laura in the Untied States also likes dogs and sends her his video with a request to be his pen pal. Laura loves his video and Jeongki becomes her 20th pen pal who likes dogs and gets introduced to a new set of friends through her. Weeks later, Jeongki grows familiar with Laura’s life, recognizes no matter how she seems different, she is a person like him – and a friend. Imagine this until every student has one friend in each country.
This is not a conventional institution based human rights activism. Instead, we focus on individuals building human relationships abroad based on common interests. The project has two main initiatives: New Media Education Kit where we advocate for new media literacy believing a true empowerment in a digital age comes when one can visually communicate online. The other is Universal Video Pen pal Web where its symbols and image interface can be easily understood despite of different cultural backgrounds. The pilot project is planned for the students in New York, New Orleans, or Seoul, South Korea.
In the 21st century, we need a new strategy for human rights activism. Sixty years have passed since the world leaders gathered and delivered the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Today there are a number of human rights crisis in various countries, yet the public in the international community don’t engage in these issues. There is an apparent ignorance in what human rights are and indifference at the news of sufferings by their fellow human beings in other country. The problem is that in this digital age, the activists are still engaging in outdated strategies. Protests, petitions, and fliers don’t draw attention of the public anymore. Institution based aid or professional advocacy group distances a citizen’s direct participation in human rights work. We are in need of a citizen based movement that captures the imagination of the public.
Following my conviction, I became a human rights activist in New York University. My particular interest went to North Korean Human Rights Crisis, because that's where my distant families live - separated from Korean War. I still remember the one winter day on the street, when I was promoting a documentary screening event to passer-by. I yelled, "Holocaust Still Exists!", "4000 North Koreans are Perishing!" "We Need Your Help!" Yet not many people stopped and listened, nor friendly I stuff their hands with flyer. The turn-out at the event also was consist of our friends, not someone from the street. Something was not working.
Perhaps I was emulating my great grandfather- I left my home in Seoul, South Korea at age 15 and began my study abroad. During the past seven years, I've worked in various cities, lived with three families, stayed at several homes, made friends from Australia, Japan, Thailand, West Europe, and the Midwest, South, and East of the United States. Looking back, (besides all the great local dishes I had), I learned a fact that contradicts the popular idea about the world. It was people are alike; they all value family and kindness, jobs and friends, home and food. The language and skin tone, religions and cultural norms seem to eccentuate their differences.
The challenge to my great grandfather was to defend his countryman who had no country. During the Japanese Colonization Era in early 1900s, Koreans lost their farms and houses to its colonizers without much legal representation. My great grandfather, at young age all alone, studied abroad in Tokyo, passed the bar exam, and came back standing up for his people. It was the citizenship, having one's own country led the greatest freedom and prosperity. So he rose to the cause of giving back sovereignty to Korean - even at some points, his entire family's life was jeopardized by colonizers.
I was around 9, when I found the coolest trick in the playground: spinning swing. All I had to do was sit at a swing, wind the ropes by turning in one direction, and let go. It was revolutionary because my friends and I have never see the sky from a swing like that before. It was like that hidden path through bushes trotted away from the main streets on the way back from school. The timeless question that pushed me forward was, "What's next?"
