The 3rd Youth-Created Sustainable World Competition in the sector of economy, organized by YWCA Korea and sponsored by Korea City Bank and the Korean Youth Organizations Council, took place on September 3rd at the Seoul Olympic Parktel.
The theme of the competition, titled ‘Future Financial City,’ was based on three YWCA priority movements: climate crisis, gender equality, and peace unification. A total of 8 teams comprising 28 students participated after going through document evaluations and interim presentations. Prior to the event, an opening ceremony was held on the Gather.town metaverse platform to enhance project participation and engage participants in the online environment, following the previous year’s online setup.
The opening ceremony held in July featured a welcome address by Ham Hee-kyung, the associative advisory board chairman of Think Money, followed by a special lecture by Yoo Jin-sun, the director of the Fair Forest Research Institute, who shared various examples of how the local youth can recognize and address climate issues. Participants engaged in tailored mentoring by field experts both online and offline over approximately 5 weeks, leading up to the final competition on September 3rd.
The event commenced with the opening speech by the National YWCA of Korea President Won Young-hee, expressing gratitude for the independent participation of teenagers in these activities and the support of activities at a time when youth activities in the era of COVID-19 and field of public education have greatly been daunted. The award ceremony recognized the “Memory Code” team for their presentation on creating QR codes for waste separation. The Excellence Award went to the “Endangered Species” team, which conducted the ‘Real Action Project’ to raise awareness of endangered animals, and the “NEXT” team for their ‘Behind Radio (Puzzle Game)’ project.
The “Memory Code” team, which received the grand prize, selected schools in the region as a community and recognized that the separate discharge of schools was not making good progress. They created a new QR code for waste separation, linked it to a website, and worked to increase public interest through various real-case studies and surveys on the economic effects of waste separation.
The “NEXT” team focused on promoting awareness and empathy for peace and reunification of the Korean peninsula, addressing the diminishing recognition and responsibility for reunification due to various social issues such as COVID-19. The ‘Youth-Created Sustainable World – Economy Edition’, now in its third year, aimed to provide youth with opportunities to think about and express proactive opinions on societal issues by integrating the National YWCA of Korea’s movements with finance and economics.
Additionally, the ‘Think Money’ initiative, running for 17 years, is a hands-on financial education program sponsored by the the National YWCA of Korea and Korea City Bank to shape a proper ‘financial values’ perspective among the youth. Operating the permanent financial experience classroom ‘Pubfin (Public Financial Education Station)’ in Suwon YWCA and Sejong YWCA, they also conduct education through an online academy platform.
The ‘1:1 Financial Education’ program is being implemented nationwide with 18 member YWCAs, offering education through ‘Pubfin Education’ using tablet PCs and ‘Good Entrepreneur Education’ for simulated entrepreneurship experiences. Efforts will be made to expand continuous education within public education and provide practical help to single-parent families and youth who have been marginalized in financial education, thus contributing to the societal safety net.
