2025 Batch of Honorary Reporters are “Ready to IMPRESS” Attending the induction Ceremony of Koreanet HR Program
2025-05-03On April 30th, 2025, Koreanet welcomed the 15th batch of Honorary Reporters, a group of K-Enthusiasts volunteering to spread the Korean culture overseas by sharing their personal stories with Korea among their community worldwide.
The Inauguration Ceremony was held at KOCIS Center in Seoul, Honorary Reporters from various countries were also able to join online through Zoom gathering around 550 online participants who showed their excitement with the starting of this new season by wearing traditional attires from their respective countries. The entire event was streamed online through different platforms like Koreanet Youtube Channel.
As the event started at 2 p.m KST which is equivalent to 6 a.m in my country, I had to wake up as early as possible to join the Zoom link wearing Algerian traditional attire.
Hosted by “Jessica Park”, the induction ceremony started with a welcoming message from Chae Su-hee, the director general of the ministry's Global Public Relations Bureau. She hailed the efforts of Honorary Reporters conveying the beauty of Korea naturally through their stories.
This year's program counts 1498 Koreanet Honorary Reporters from 101 countries, many HR who have been in the program for more than 3 years and also new applicants who are ready to share their enthusiasm through their writings. I was extremely delighted to notice that a lot of people from my country were accepted this year. It showcases the impact of Korean Hallyu and the rising popularity of Koreanet in Algeria.
Following that, 2 sisters from Egypt “Salwa” and “Israa Elzeny” who have been in the HR Program for 11 years, prepared a video expressing their gratitude to Koreanet, welcoming new reporters and their joy seeing the HR Family grow year by year. Another Egyptian Honorary reporter “Ghada Mohamed Ali Elsayed” studying engineering was one of the onsite attendees, She shared her proudest moment being an Honorary Reporter when she got the opportunity to interview Kim Soo-yoon who was behind the amazing soundtrack of Kdrama ‘Lovely Runner’.
The induction ceremony also highlighted the new joiners, One of them is “Tracy Leanne Barnes” from Australia, one of the onsite attendees who shared her excitement to join the program for the first time this year. She's fallen in love with the charms of Busan, a city that felt like home to her. Then, her son encouraged her to pursue her dreams. That's how she is now teaching English in Busan, ready to share her personal stories living in Korea.
The ceremony was embellished by various cultural performances prepared by talented reporters, “Michelle Paris” from Malta delighted us with a wonderful Maltese and Korean Harp medley featuring Korean OST like ‘Magic Lily’ from Historical Kdrama, originally sung by Ahn Yeeun, She also added a touch of her maltese heritage into the medley.
Afterwards, 2 Vietnamese Reporters “Pham Thi My Hanh” & “Pham Thi Bich Nguye” performed Traditional Buchaechum and traditional vietnamese dance to 2 songs ‘Sailing’ and ‘Bắc Bling’ celebrating 33rd anniversary of diplomatic ties between Korea and Vietnam.
The ceremony concluded by Chae Su-hee, the director general of the ministry's Global Public Relations Bureau presenting appointment certificates to 5 honorary Reporters who attended the onsite the ceremony, launching the program together by pressing the HR button. Attendees onsite and online took a commemorative picture with their appointment certificates officially beginning a year of dedication.
The most anticipated part of the event started right after the ceremony, we were finally greeted by our lovely General manager Kal Hong who welcomed us once again this year, She presented the orientation program to newcomers by sharing Koreanet introduction and statistics of nations participating in the program, the Top five nations being Egypt, Vietnam, Indonisia, Russian and India respectively. She also shared the number of articles submitted per the 10 official languages of Koreanet.
The orientation wrapped up successfully by a Q&A session where both offline and online participants shared their various inquiries about the program. The induction ceremony was a great opportunity for me to connect with fellow Honorary Reporters and prompted my eagerness to share my experience with Korea, especially my recent trip.
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