The accumulated number of overseas service volunteers dispatched by the Korean government exceeded 10,000 on Tuesday.
The Korea International Cooperation Agency, a government institution in charge of assistance to underdeveloped and developing countries, said that a group of 10 volunteers left the country Tuesday for overseas service, bringing the total number of its overseas service corps to 10,009.
Park Ji-eun (left), the 10,000th volunteer of the Korea International Cooperation Agency, holds her commemorative footprint next to Yoon Jang-yong, the first volunteer, before her departure for Uzbekistan at Incheon International Airport on Tuesday. The 27-year-old was recruited last November. (Yonhap News)
The agency first sent 44 volunteers to four countries ― Nepal, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Philippines ― in 1990, and has since dispatched more than 10,000 to 65 countries. Currently, 1,612 volunteers are serving communities in 45 countries.
Vietnam tops the list of countries with the most volunteers dispatched by the KOICA at 643 people, followed by the Philippines with 605, Indonesia with 599, Mongolia with 579, Cambodia with 547, Sri Lanka with 472, and Peru with 443.
Computer education (26.7 percent) and teaching the Korean language (25.2 percent) were the two most provided services, taking up a total of 51.9 percent. Nursery (11.5 percent), child care (7.9 percent), and teaching taekwondo (7.0 percent) filled out the top five.
In light of age at the time of dispatch, those in their 20s and 30s took the lion’s share of 89.7 percent, but the portion of those in their 40s and 50s has steadily increased to 4.7 percent since the 2000s.
By gender, men far outnumbered women before 1999, but women outpaced men after 2000 when they accounted for 57.6%.
By Chun Sung-woo (
swchun@heraldcorp.com)