Folker Mittag, from Germany and Luis Gomes, from Goa, India, visited South Korea from Feb. 14 to 21, 2013 to meet friends and Interns at home with the effort to strengthen and further the work of Caux Initiatives for Business (CIB) and Initiatives of Change (IofC). Below is a brief write-up on their visit.
“It was our first stay in a Korean home and Joungsuk and Yeon Yuk (YY) were excellent hosts who made certain that we felt wonderfully cared for. We recognize that if it were not for the support of YY, this visit would not have taken place.
Our visit had the following reasons:
(a) assess and establish a local team of Caux Initiatives for Business [CIB – an Initiatives of Change programme] in South Korea,
(b) enlist possible delegates and speakers from South Korea for the CIB 2013 International Conference at Panchgani, India which is jointly hosted by IofC India and Japan and
(c) support IofC activities in South Korea as much as possible.
We were grateful to have met leaders of business and industry that included representatives of groups such as Tata Daewoo (Zackria Sait, VP), SAMYANG System Group (Chang-Chil Yang, President; Byeong-Cheon Kang, Vice Chairman; Ms. Katie Yang), Small & Medium Business Corporations (Sustainable Management – Director : Yong Seog Lee and Sr. Manager : Byung-Jin Hong), Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility (Executive Director : Hyun-Duk Chang), Young People in Business and Banking (Chenam, Engineer & Businessman; Jeong Cheon Cho, CEO ARNIS Intelligence Ltd; Kim Dong Hui, Accountant, Hanabank, etc).
We also had fruitful interactions with Prof. Dr. Kwang-Sun Cha, President of MRA, South Korea and National Council of Youth Organisation in Korea and another Board Member of MRA, Prof. Dr. Chuer-Ung Park of Baekseok University; Fr. Oliver F. Williams CSC, Academic Director of Centre for Ethics and Religious Values in Business of University of Notre Dame, USA, who is in Korea to establish a course in “Business Ethics” during 2012-13; Mr. Jaykun Yoo, CEO of CGNTV and Prof. Dr. Heon-Il Chang, Secretary General, KNPB.
A special bonus for us was reconnecting with a number of friends who were either Interns at Asia Plateau, Panchgani or part of the Action for Life (AfL) programme in India. (Luis was part of the team responsible for Asia Plateau Centre at Panchgani for over 21 years. During the several visits that Folker and his wife, Monica made to India, they had cared for Interns and AfL participants.)
We had two interactions and meetings with The First Steps of Change, one was with deep sharing. We were greatly inspired by members, who despite the long travel (some between 2 to 5 hours one way), still made it for their weekly IofC meetings. We want to express our appreciation to all the First Steps of Change members who took the trouble to show us a little of Korea. It meant a lot to us.
We hope that our visit to South Korea was also of some benefit to the South Korean Team and look forward to
(a) CIB activities commencing in Korea;
(b) having a team come for CIB 2013 International Conference in India from Nov. 7 to 15, 2013 and
(c) seeing more young Koreans participate in Asia Plateau’s Internship programmes. We felt deeply cared for by all the Koreans we met during our brief stay.”
For Luis, it was a first visit to a country having snow in winter (- 9 0C). Luis and Folker enjoyed eating various types of Korean food, visiting old palaces and seeing heritage Korean-type homes. They witnessed the “Changing of the Guards” and took part in ringing the Big Bell at 12 noon. They even visited the Unification Observatory and prayed for unity. In all, it was a meaningful visit which opened their hearts to the people of Korea.