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VANK or Voluntary Agency Network of Korea is a non-governmental South Korean organization made up of volunteers. especially over 1,000 Korean kids joined VANK's members. [1] It states that its purpose is to "enhanc[e] the image of Korea on the road." VANK links Korean teenagers with teenagers around the world to benefit both by cultural and historical enrichment through penpals and chatting. Image File history File links Unbalanced_scales. ... Image File history File links Information. ... Jamo redirects here. ... The Revised Romanization of Korean is the official Korean language romanization system in South Korea. ... McCune-Reischauer romanization is one of the two most widely used Korean language romanization systems, along with the Revised Romanization of Korean, which replaced (a modified) McCune-Reischauer as the official romanization system in South Korea in 2000. ...

VANK' letter Writing Campaign influences world, for example, one of the most famous map makers, worldatlas.com , say that before the 18th century, no one name was consistently used, and in fact varied names such as "East Sea," "Sea of Korea," "Sea of Japan" and "Oriental Sea" appeared in and on old maps, publications and atlases. Then for a variety of reasons the "Sea of Japan" became more prominent in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the late 1990s the Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (VANK) began an aggressive letter and email writing campaign, all in an effort to get the world, especially map makers, travel guides and geography web sites to include the East Sea, whenever the long-established Sea of Japan was found in print. Their claim that the East Sea has some historical precedent worked, as some major book and map publishers, educational web sites and other reference materials now include the East Sea name along with the Sea of Japan.[2] The Sea of Japan is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean, bordered by Japan, Korea and Russia. ...

Some world scholars take supports of VANK's Campaign. "They are dedicated to, as they say on their web site, "enhancing the image of Korea in cyberspace". Hopefully, through the efforts of VANK and interested world scholars, Korea's true history will fully be known. [3]

VANK is also trying to build bridges of friendship between Korea and the world, both on- and offline, so they are running "Friends of Korea Club," a worldwide campaign to attract visitors by letting them see Korea's friendly charm. [4]

Over 16,000 volunteer members are building skills, enhancing learning, and understanding of other countries cultures with VANK.

VANK has exchanged with 80 overseas classroom around world since 1999. and They have detailed educational and comprehensive data regarding Korean history and culture, as well as digital pictures, which are all collected by VANK members (16,000 elementary, middle and high school voluntary student members). Annual report of VANK' ePALS Classes

VANK's main projects are as follows

• Training all Koreans as cyber diplomats :

It focuses on cultivating cyber diplomats by establishing a whopping 10.000 clubs in nation-wide elementary, middle and high schools as well as universities. The vision of VANK will grow into the vision of all Koreans.

• E-pen palling with foreign friends :

It targets Internet-savvy Korean juveniles to be more fluent in English and expand their intellectual horizon by making friends with foreigners through e-pen palling. [5]

• Correcting distorted information on Korea :

Foreign textbooks with distorted information on Korea are now being rapidly circulated on the Internet after having spread across the world over the past years. This project is to cut off further diffusion and correct the distorted information. [6]

• Establishing international cooperative network :

It creates windows that can deliver new and diverse information on Korea in an effective and sustainable manner by cooperating with influential overseas associations.

• Taking pictures of my village :

It promotes Korea to as many as foreigners by making DB that holds diverse pictures of Korean historic relics and cultural heritages of more than 5,000 years. [7]

• Constructing search engine of Korean information :

It helps overseas netizens have right information on Korea without major difficulties in colleting or searching information by systematically gathering and networking all dispersed online information on Korean culture, history and lifestyle.

• Network for oversea Koreans :

It secures a personal network composed of Overseas Korean Student Association, children of overseas Koreans and Koreans adopted into foreign families abroad and establishes a community that brings together all 6.5 million overseas Koreans to promote Korea rightly.

• English newspaper, PRKOREA Times :

Our cyber diplomats participate in making PRKOREA Times targeting potential foreign visitors to Korea and foreigners residing in Korea [8]

• Peace newspaper, Paths to Peace :

'Paths to Peace' (P2P) is a webzine run by VANK. Its purpose is to build paths to peace in Asia and the world through a P-2-P ('peer to peer' or 'people to people') network. It addresses a wide range of topics, such as conflicts in Asia (e.g., comfort women, Yasukuni shrine), etiquette in Asia, and more [9]

External links

• VANK
• Frineds of Korea Club
• Truth in Scholarship
• Effect of VANK activities
• Share E-pals Classroom Exchange with VANK