South Korea has one of the highest suicide rates among the world’s developed countries. The incidence of teenage suicides is particularly disturbing. Official statistics indicated that in 2005 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the suicide rate among middle and high school students stood at 7.6 students per 100,000. The causal factors are complex but what stands out is that more than half of the suicides were directly related to school bullying.
In 1995, KIM JONG-KI was a highly successful businessman handling market operations in China for a giant Korean electronics company. Married, with a son and daughter, he was at the height of his career when tragedy struck. He was traveling in China when he learned that his sixteen-year-old son, Dae-hyun, had committed suicide, leaving no clues as to the reason; JONG-KI would learn later from Dae-hyun’s friends that it was bullying in school that drove him to end his life. The suicide devastated the family. It was no consolation to them that bullying and school violence were not recognized as life-threatening problems by the government or Korean society. Worse, those who repeatedly inflicted violence on his son continued to bully others. Heartbroken, JONG-KI knew he had to do something to channel his grief and to prevent similar youth tragedies.
In the year his son died, JONG-KI established the Foundation for Preventing Youth Violence (FPYV), the first organized effort in South Korea to address school violence as a systemic social problem affecting students, families, schools, and the community-at-large. At that time, there were no means in the country for JONG-KI to complain and seek help. There was little public awareness of the scale and seriousness of school violence—even the term was not recognized. School violence was regarded as mere fighting, normal among teenagers. Government and schools did not want public attention on the issue; victims and their parents were afraid, or just did not want to speak out. FPYV’s initial activity was to hold a press conference where JONG-KI spoke candidly about Dae-hyun’s suicide and the bullying that triggered it; this was the very first time the problem of youth violence and its destructive consequences was bravely acknowledged in public.
Over the next twenty-four years, JONG-KI and his staff painstakingly developed a holistic program of detection, protection, and management in youth violence. Under JONG-KI’s committed leadership, FPYV carried out wide-ranging anti-bullying campaigns which included seminars, rallies, concerts and films; operated a hotline which now takes thirty to fifty calls daily, with the capacity to dispatch staff to respond to urgent cases, and lobbied for needed government policy and legislation. After ten years, a law on the prevention and handling of school violence was finally enacted in 2004. Today, FPYV offers counseling and mediation services nationwide in partnership with Korea’s Ministry of Education. Its pioneering dispute mediation and reconciliation program pays as much attention to reforming bullies and healing families as it does to protecting victims. Its educational initiatives include a campaign against cyber bullying through a “digital citizenship” program. In 2010, it started an institute offering both onsite and online certificate training programs on youth violence prevention, detection, and management that has since certified thousands of teachers, parents, counselors, police officers, and others.
The impact of JONG-KI and FPYV on Korean society has been profound, establishing a nationwide presence and creating collective action on a social problem hitherto neglected. A 2018 survey showed that since FPYV started its campaign in 1995, the incidence of school violence has dropped from twenty percent to three percent. Yet JONG-KI knows that there is still much work to be done, even as he explains his work simply, “It was God’s command that I contribute my life to this cause. It is my promise to my son.” It is a promise he has fulfilled not only to his son but to the good of all of Korea’s youth.
In electing KIM JONG-KI to receive the 2019 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his quiet courage in transforming private grief into a mission to protect Korea’s youth from the scourge of bullying and violence, his unstinting dedication to the goal of instilling among the young the values of self-esteem, tolerance, and mutual respect, and his effectively mobilizing all sectors of the country in a nationwide drive that has transformed both policy and behaviors towards building a gentler, non-violent society.
