Starting this month, I’ll be part of the Korean Youth Policy Panel, a government program that allows young people to suggest policies and formally share their opinions on existing ones.
I applied to this program because of my volunteer work at a group home, which I started in 7th grade. During that time, I often thought, “It would really help if there were support like this,” or “Something about this doesn’t seem right.” My first clear idea was to create a platform to recruit volunteers like me, which led to the development of a volunteer-matching app and eventually to founding Volunteers Korea as an organization.
As I continued to volunteer, I noticed that while individuals can make a meaningful difference, there are limits to what one person can accomplish. Some issues require systemic change; they cannot be solved without support from institutions.
For example, a boy I’ll refer to as Minwoo has a mother who came to Korea as a marriage immigrant from Vietnam. After his father disappeared, she was deported back to Vietnam. When a marriage immigrant is separated from her family like this, there is very little an individual can do without government intervention. Luckily, the group home system was there, and through it, Minwoo found another loving family.
However, many areas still need urgent institutional support or reform. Through the Youth Policy Panel, I hope to learn more about national policy and share my perspective on it. Since some of the panel’s proposals end up as real policy, I plan to keep presenting my ideas.