Youth Festival Mascot

The official mascot of this years festival...

Although they may not look like much, these

two guys should help us "go together, toward

our dream".

The little guy on the left, is known as"아라"

or "Ara" in Korean his name means the sea.

The little gal on the right is known as "아띠"

she shares her love and happiness.

They are both angels born from the sea.

Above is the symbol of this year's festival

The shape is supposed to be a "Y" which

stands for the Y in both Yeosu and Youth

The blue shows the waves of the ocean,

youth, and Yeosu's sea. The green shows

the environment, and the orange shows

a happy heart.

The sky blue star means "dream".

The red star means "passion".

The Orange star means "talent"

Hello youth!!!!

So right now we are heading towards the halfway mark... As a result of some differences between countries in terms of applications, medical releases, references letters, all of our forms are going to be reproduced and resent out, I hope this doesn't cause any disruptions, but will actually help everyone to have a safer trip. They will be posted this afternoon.ICI

NEWCOMERS

Ok, so I am getting HEAPS of new applications, everyday from all over the world. I wanna try and use this part of the blog as a place for all of you new guys to just drop in, say hi and introduce yourselves or something, thanks, ICI.

APPLICATION FORM

THE LINKS ARE NOW READY TO BE USED, AND THE APPLICATIONS CAN BE DOWNLOADED AGAIN, SORRY FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE. To download, scroll to the bottom of the linked page, and click download, you have to wait 30 seconds, I will endeavour to find a better way, thanks, Logan.

Click the links below for the information

APPLICATION FORM

LETTER FOR PARTICIPANTS

These are the two files that you should download and read, before returning the completed application form along with a copy of your passport and student ID if you have one. Once we have received all of your completed forms, we will contact you and inform you as to whether or not you application has been accepted, and then tell you what will happen next.

All applications can be sent to ici@icworld.or.kr with the header "YEOSU"

Tell me more about the camp please!

okay, so right now there is an information overload, but not that much about the camp, well, basically the camp will give everyone the opportunity to learn, have fun, and makes friends.

We can learn about things related to each others' cultures and more. On the first day, when we do our orientation we will be designating people into different groups of about 20-25, from these groups, you will pick people to be your leader, reporter,and official blogger.

Our designated Reporters will go around filming things, interviewing people and then uploading them along with their official blogger, we will be offering prizes to the groups that have the best entries, too!

Our bloggers will be responsible for, well, blogging, Korea is the most wired country in the world, and I don't mean on coffee, groups will be able to use our laptops and computers to upload, in English, things about the festival, how you feel and introducing different things about Yeosu.

For the budding clowns out there, we will be having things like; learning how to make balloon animals, mime, and juggling. As well as, environmentally friendly events like t-shirt making, clay craft, natural napkins, traditional Korean nail-art, and making wooden mobile phone accessories. We can then use all of these skills, and choose which ones we like best to teach to people during the festival.

With around two years to go before the Yeosu World Expo we will create a symbol or emblem that we can use and display, if you don't know what I mean, neither do I, because exactly what we do, and how we do it will be decided by all of you at the camp.

What else are we doing?

We will be offering homestays for those wishing to come earlier and stay after the camp and festival, this will be a great way to not only learn about Korean culture, but to also share your culture, too.

Besides running booths during the festival, we will be operating an International cafe selling snacks, drinks, and maybe even food from your country!

For those of you that are artistically minded there will be plenty of opportunities to look around and see a wide range of performances including; miming, Bboys and breakdancing, and singing competitions/talent performances. Not only can you watch them you can even be a part of them and take home some cash! Yup, with a first prize of $3000USD in 2008, we can expect the prize to be just as good, if not better, so don't forget to bring your singing voices.

Who is coming?

As you may or may not know, Korea is a country that has some 50,000,000 people, including around 1,000,000 that were born overseas...

This festival we will be extending the age limit from 13-18 to 13-23(1986-1996), giving the opportunity for more people to participate than ever before...

Right now through ICIworld we will personally be bringing over 170 youth from 35 countries to Korea, as well as matching each of you guys up with a Korean buddy located here, so that you can become friends before you meet in person...

Not only that, but we will have some 200 youth coming from Asian countries including China, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and more.

Add that to some 50 participants from the CCAP, (Cross Cultural Awareness Program) run by UNESCO, that will boost participation with students from Russian, English, and French speaking countries.

We will also be expecting some 100,000 Korean participants!!! if you add all of that up, it is in the million, I think....

Why are we giving you a free flight to come to Korea?

I know, I know, why would we be willing to pay for your airfare, accommodation, food and transport to come to South Korea?

Actually WE aren't paying, the Korean Government supporting this project. The idea is that by educating you guys on Korean culture in Korea, and proving a place for youth from all over the world to meet, you will go home and tell people about Korea, and hopefully in the future you will come back to Korea, or participate in future festivals, or help promote the Yeosu World EXPO in 2012, in your home countries. As you know by having bloggers and festival reporters (YOU!) you will be able to help promote Yeosu through your eyes, and help unlock the hidden secrets of Yeosu to people from all over the world!

We will have booths run by you guys, about things that you wanna do, for example, if you come from a country that has unique, traditional clothes and want to allow people from different countries to learn about them, and wear them, then we will PAY you to bring some over, so that people can try them on.

We will be offering events that not only help you, the participants, radiate your talents and enthusiasm , but we will also focus on events and programs that are regarding your concerns and issues, so that you can learn and enjoy...

Remember, you won't only be visitors to the festival you will be helping to LEAD the festival

Concept

The concept of this years festival is:

~To let the youth lead the festival and serve a practical role for organizing the festival

The participants of this camp will not only attend the camp as people who simply want to see what's going on, but will play an active role in deciding what to do, and how to do it.

~Solidifying the festival as being truly a "YOUTH" festival

By having a total of over 400 youth aged from 13-24 from around the world attend, and participate in a wide variety of events we hope to really make this an event the youth of the world want to attend.

~To create a practical and sustainable exchange of youth throughout the camp

We don't wanna just have people hang out with people from their own countries, or meet some people and forget about them when they return, but instead, we wanna see different people from different backgrounds and cultures working together.

~Increase exchange amongst global youth, and forge global leadership

As the leaders of tomorrow working together to become better has never been more important than now. We hope to see people realize their potential, and become better leaders.

~To differentiate ourselves from past programs and design a fresh and creative program

This program has been running for 10 years now, and has seen an exponential increase of participants, from an unprecedented amount of countries attend. With your help we hope to make this program completely different from festivals and camps gone by.

~Motivate youth through voluntary participation

We hope that through spending time with new people, and in an unfamiliar environment we can help motivate people to engage in different kinds of volunteer activities, we will have volunteer opportunities helping people at our booths, teaching people about your traditional clothes and culture, and more

The Search for Participants begins

So, this is my first post, and I barely have time to write it as I shoot between the phone and the email and back again. It is my first day of sending out feelers for possible applicants, and I am already swamped!

Hopefully by the end of the week I will have made the time to add some meaningful information for everyone to see. If you have any comments or suggestions, comment or suggest away~~~~~~