“Grassroots democracy and a grassroots organization might sound like politically-oriented terms; however, grassroots is really just the roots of people’s minds. The purpose of a social movement itself may be to create institutional changes and policy changes. The power to achieve such goals basically relies on changing ordinary people’s minds and their consciousness.”

She has been working in various grassroots organizations in Cheonan for about 15 years. Since she experienced the 1970s-1980s’ fast economic development as well as a pro-democracy movement in South Korea - or South Korea’s transitional period - she has been recognizing quite significant changes in the grassroots activities she has been involved. Twenty years ago, under the authoritarian government, it was more important to make institutional changes and to correct the wrongdoings of the regime rather than fostering one’s own consciousness. After the massive citizen movement for democracy in 1987, the foundation of democratization was laid. However, she is uncertain whether real democratization has been achieved in South Korea.

“Making real improvements requires, above all, democratization of the public's consciousness. In fact, a citizen gradually possesses rights and responsibilities and then realizes his or her complete possession of them. Only then can real democracy be achieved. For that reason, the top-to-bottom approach to systematically change the society has limitations in achieving goals. This basically leaves grassroots organizations with the responsibility of creating social change from bottom-up.”

Globalization is also another catalyst for change in grassroots organizations she emphasizes.

“I believe that what has changed is that grassroots organizations, which are based on local communities, have more opportunities to communicate and interact with one another even though they might not be connected with any specific issue. Previously, most of the meetings among grassroots organizations were issue-driven and conducted with much formality and rigidity. However, these days we have occasional meetings to share our experiences and to encourage and appreciate one other’s efforts. This may mean that we now have a desire for more networking. In a similar way, we now have greater means and channels to communicate with our international counterparts; that is a big change. Individual experiences of various grassroots organizations are unique and case-specific, but among them must be some cases that could give guidance or help to other organizations dealing with similar issues in the field. And with communication channels established among members of different organizations, an opportunity for improving and strengthening grassroots activities is realistically expected.”

Compared to the past, national and international alliances among grassroots organizations in South Korea have increased. This is the result of globalization as well as people’s recognition of the importance of the grassroots movement. Lately, the importance of grassroots organizations has become ever more significant in South Korea, allowing local activists to gain more opportunities to communicate with broader communities beyond their local contexts. As there are more opportunities for communication, changes in activists’ perceptions seem to have taken roots as well.

“We now have an increased number of grassroots organizations, but we are also in a period of transition. We activists are exhausted and external support is lacking, but socially we play very important roles. For the past five years, a lot of effort has been made by elder South Korean activists in order to create an environment for sustainable grassroots movement. When you are forty, you realize how difficult it is to continue actively participating in the campaign, and to initiate a new project. Therefore, we need to build a system right away to support younger generations of activists who will experience the same obstacles. The crisis South Korean civil society experiences now is due to the lack of a system that can pass elder activists' experiences of trials and errors on to newcomers’ efforts. I believe we must start creating such a system if we are to carry on with the lessons of the last twenty years since the civil movements in South Korea gained victory in 1987. ”

Her main grassroots approach is called Incubating, which is a method to train grassroots communities so that they are eventually able to work independently. She, however, never intended to start incubation on purpose. Basically, incubating is creating new organizations even if it costs a mother organization to shrink its size. For this reason, she thinks incubating is not a business method, but more likely a spiritually-motivated and self-sacrificing process.

Here, she introduces the process of incubating. When trying to solve social problems, it is important to choose carefully who will serve as the main actors of the movement. For example, there is the issue of disabled children. When you think of who can really care and solve the issues of those children, clearly it is their mothers. In that case, what you have to do is organize the groups of mothers of disabled children. You must carefully consider the issues, search for the people who show interests and help these mothers develop consciousness and objectivity on those issues. In addition, you must support them systemically, providing them assistance to develop their group’s vision, and helping to realize their project. First, you must develop administrative leaders, and then you need to cultivate personnel who are in charge of the board of directors. Administrative leaders are trained to manage the office, and directorial leaders are taught to develop sound decision-making process and the group’s vision.

“When I focus on ‘leadership’, what I am trying to say is that it is more important to build a leader not based on his/her personal charismatic character, but rather on his/her communication abilities with other members of the group, sharing the movement’s issues and goals with one another. If not, the organization could be a private possession of certain leaders. Until now, we have never had a realistic chance to look deeply into the leadership issues in South Korean NGOs because everyone has had a “get-the-job-done-first” attitude. Personal development and capacity-building of those who actually manage the tasks were never a priority. But now, South Korean NGOs must take steps to bring about changes among themselves. Unless we help people working in NGO sector improve their leadership and communication skills, we would never be able to do or accomplish meaningful activities.”

However, for a grassroots organization, being financially independent is a big challenge to say the least. Building up a sound financial basis takes place in the incubation stage. The process is to train staffs in the office and board members so that they can receive contributions and donations for their own projects. Although many people do not have a positive opinion on donation culture in South Korea, she sees it as another opportunity for grassroots organizations to expand their resource pool.

“The donation culture in South Korea is nowhere near other developed countries; therefore, you have fewer people with interests in donation. But that also implies that the potential donor base is quite large. We have a good environment to revitalize grassroots campaigns.”

She claims that South Korean society lacks the power to gather those people who care for public interests. In the past, there was a community base built by the 386-Generation.¹ These days, community concerns and values have drastically shrunk and individual concerns have prevailed. She believes giving people hope and trust is the role of grassroots organizations in South Korea.

“If you persuade people in a right way and with persistence, they will make a donation. You need to make them feel comfortable and explain the meaning and social consequence of the issue. I feel strongly that any civil society organization’s goal should be that at least the operational expenses of your organization are covered by the donations made by ordinary citizens who believe in your cause.”

She regards the act of seeking and giving donations as a part of the movement-to make the public believe in the organization’s mission and activities-which makes people willing to participate. It is an essential process to examine the likelihood of your mission and activities. This is why she emphasizes financial management, especially the fundraising ability during incubation processes.

“If the donor recognizes the changes in the areas for which she/he made a donation, she/he would not hesitate to make another donation. Grassroots activities have the purpose of changing people’s minds, and if you are unsuccessful to move their minds towards making a donation, then there’s a problem with that. It is very important for you to be able to communicate with the public from their point of view.”

Why has she been concentrating on supporting small communities in a particular area, in this case Cheonan? As she said above, she values people above anything else. To her, the change of people’s minds and consciousness and their active participation are the most important things, and she says they are easier in relatively small organizations than bigger ones. But, she believes that real changes in one small place can make greater ripple effects in other places.

“As you participate in the decision-making process and as your opinion is reflected in such a process, you experience the transformation of citizenship. Yet, however efficient this process may seem, in a large organization it is difficult to see your ideas reflected in the decision-making process. In a small organization, on the other hand, as you play a prominent role in the process, you experience the transformation of a society as well as yourself. Changes in public consciousness are of real importance, and small-scale activities are sure to achieve that.”

When closely examined, her beliefs and social welfare projects are in tandem with the core principles of the Human Rights-Based Approach (HRBA), even though she has not been using the term itself. When social issues arise, often different groups with different agendas and priorities hastily make their own ways to tackle the problems, excluding the people who are directly affected by these problems. This can sometimes result in a significant waste of time and resources without real changes in the situation. However, the incubating project is strongly based on people’s participation, which is one of the main principles of HRBA.

“For example, previously we regarded the organization for the disabled as an organization that would provide one-sided support. But the incubating project challenged and changed such a relationship and viewpoint. I believe that the problem-solving capacities are innate and that genuine sentiment to keep it going exists internally. We can only play our role as a supporter. Therefore, the incubating project requires a great deal of belief and patience that the people will improve themselves and become responsible for their own tasks.”

As a grassroots activist with 15 years of ups and downs experiences, she has worked by one principle; when she must choose between work and people, she takes the side of the people.

“The size of your organization is not as important as how many people share the vision that you have. In the grassroots field, there is always overwhelming work and tasks to complete. So, frankly speaking, it is not always easy to choose people over work. So, I do have inner conflicts at times. Some people might say with a business mind that you cannot but choose work instead of people when they are in conflict, but I highly doubt that is the right way to do it. The purpose and challenge of a social movement is to change the consciousness of the people and let them grow and develop. I would like to try my best to keep this fundamental principle until the end.”

Interview conducted and summarized by Yejin Heo