Nov. 19 to 23 was officially POSTECH’s Human Rights Week. For five days, MODAM, the Student Minority Human Rights Council, hosted Human Rights Week as a period where POSTECH students and staff can ponder upon the topic ‘Human Rights’ and participate in events that can aid in the creation of a human right-friendly campus environment. Campus events such as human rights movie screenings, MODAM talk shows, ‘Find the Barrier’ event, Human Rights themed exhibitions, and lectures can all help create this type of campus. Each and every event hosted promotes active and further contemplation on the theme ‘Human Rights’ for all students and staff of POSTECH, and offers a chance to become involved in discussions regarding human rights- a rare event in a Science & Technology focused school such as POSTECH.
MODAM is POSTECH’s student organization that protects and promotes student’s understanding and acknowledgement of human rights. The name MODAM is an abbreviation of a Korean phrase ‘moduleul damda’ and means ‘including everyone’ and ‘connects with everyone.’ As the name suggests, MODAM aims to create a human rights friendly campus and to communicate with various types of people.
The POSTECH Human Rights Week was special for various reasons
Unlike other universities’ human rights week, POSTECH Human Rights Week focuses on creating an event where students and staffs can freely participate. Other than the movie screening, all other events prepared by MODAM involved student participation. During the MODAM talk shows, student and professors can openly share opinions; exhibition artwork consists mainly of works by POSTECH students or certain clubs; the ‘find the barrier’ event allows students to consider about possible barriers for minorities, and the lectures end with a discussion period for lecturers and participants. Also, POSTECH’s sex minority group LINQ participated in the events offline for the first time in its entire history. LINQ has announced that they hope to state the existence of sexual minorities within campus through handing out name cards and snacks that promote LINQ to recipients.
However, many challenges were faced during the event procedures. As MODAM is a student organization, the budget and promotion of the event was limited compared with similar events hosted at universities through their Human Rights Centers and student unions. Also, an interview with MODAM revealed that there were many negative calls and emails to various authorities regarding the lectures homosexuality content. MODAM shared that “it was shocking to find the whole office overloaded with protest calls” and added that some even visited the lectures and asked inappropriate questions towards the lecturers. Luckily, MODAM quotes, “many student and school organizations and individual staff supported the event through advice, financial means and active participation.
MODAM remarked that “Human right is the dignity, freedom, value, and rights inherent to all human beings and a value that MODAM must strive to protect for all people” and added that “Human Rights Week played its role sufficiently as it succeeded in creating a special opportunity by involving various school and student organizations together in one event.”