Launching the Lee Tae Seok Leadership Academy
In April 2023, the Lee Tae Seok Foundation launched the Lee Tae Seok Leadership Academy, dedicated to nurturing future leaders. This initiative stems from the belief that Father Lee Tae Seok’s life serves as one of the most exemplary models of character education, and that the key to overcoming today’s social conflicts and deepening distrust lies in cultivating principled and compassionate leaders.
The Leadership Academy encompasses the Leadership School, Journalism School, and various humanities lectures for elementary, middle, and high schools. The response from schools, students, and parents has been overwhelmingly positive. Last year alone, over 10,000 students and 2,000 teachers encountered the story of Father Lee through the Academy.
The Leadership Academy also supports school-based leadership development programs. In July of last year, a youth leadership exchange agreement was signed with the Hamyeol Girls’ High School in Iksan, Jeollabuk-do.
Cultivating Our Future Leaders
For the first time in Korea, a school dedicated to learning the life and spirit of Father Lee Tae Seok has opened. Targeting middle and high school students, the school’s mission is to cultivate leaders who embody integrity and a sense of responsibility—just like Father Lee Tae Seok. To that end, the faculty is composed of individuals who live lives of service and sharing.
Among the esteemed instructors are:
Olle Thorell, a five-term member of Swedish Parliament,
Mogens Godballe, principal of a Danish folk high school,
Steve Schwager, a respected statistician and professor emeritus at Cornell University,
Armen Melikyan, who rescued over 300 people during the war in Ukraine,
Father Yu Ibae, a Spanish priest who has cared for Hansen’s disease patients in Sancheong, Korea, for 43 years.
The Leadership School holds classes once a week, three hours every Saturday, for a total of eight weeks. The curriculum explores the altruism, empathy, and power of listening embodied in Father Lee’s life, taught through the real-life stories and experiences of the faculty.
Upon graduation, students are given the opportunity to travel to South Sudan for firsthand learning.
