Being the student leader of Sunfull Movement
“When a student who used to think and talk “negatively” on other people changes his or her behavior in a positive way, the whole nation benefits,” says Park Sin-ook, the current president of Sunfull Global Leaders Club which is part of Sunfull Movement, an on-line positive comments campaign to clean up online message boards, is founded by a well-known intercultural educator Professor Min, Byoung-chul of Chung-Ang University.
It has been only about 10 months since Park first heard the word Sunfull (positive comments online) but Park is now on the first line of leading the nation’s university students. “By chance, I was introduced to Professor Min through a person I sat next to at a business/management seminar last year. Since then, I got to know that there was such thing as ‘Sunfull Movement,’ in which many people are actually interested,” said Park. Hearing all the negative effects and seriousness that are brought by Akple (antonym of Sunfull which means negative comments online), Park got interested inthis movement and decided to take part.
At first there were only students from Chung-Ang University in the campaign when Park first joined in July, 2008. However, in four months, the movement was expanded into students from 13 universities in and out of Seoul. “Students from Ewha also made a group called Ewha Sunfull Leaders Club and voluntarily participated in different Sunfull activities such as SBS Current Event Debate, National Assembly Sunfull Politics Day, and Hello Sunfull Event to further promote the Sunfull movement and to let people know the necessity of writing positive postings,” said Park.
University students’ passion to spread the posting of positive and encourage online comments to protect victims of cyber bullying continued and the movement began to grow. With Park as the leader, the Sunfull University Club Organization was co-joined by students from China and Japan as well. “We concluded to have connected efforts with Japan and China. Last winter, some of Korean students including myself went over to Beijing and had lectures to discuss about current and future Sunfull movement,” said Park.
Park says the Sunfull Global Leaders Club members will continue its efforts to reach their hands globally and spread the Sunfull Movement. “Taking last year’s joint program with China as our first successful step, we hope to continue concluding interchange relationship with Taiwan, US, Europe and to the whole nations. In the long term, I believe that this kind of joint Sunfull movement with other nations will greatly contribute to global peace as well. When people think and speak positively, there would be no unnecessary conflicts caused by emotional, insulting comments online.”