by REERA YOO | @reeraboo
editor@charactermedia.com
As the one-year anniversary of the Sewol ferry sinking approaches, the oldest son of the late Hollywood icon Audrey Hepburn plans to create a forest in South Korea to memorialize the hundreds of victims who were killed or missing in the tragedy.
Sean Hepburn Ferrer pitched the “Sewol Memorial Forest” project to Tree Planet back in May 2014, just one month after the sinking.
Tree Planet is an environmental group that plants trees in several countries around the world, including South Korea, Cambodia, Mongolia and Sudan, through funds raised from a smartphone game app. Since its launch in 2010, the company has planted over 480,000 trees in 10 different nations.
Tree Planet’s spokesman Jang Byeong-joon said Ferrer wished to continue to his mother’s legacy of humanitarian work. Grateful for her own good fortune following World War II, Hepburn served as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) from 1988 to her death in 1993.
The Sewol Memorial Forest will be built on a hill on the southwestern island of Jindo, only 4 kilometers away from the port closest to the accident site, the spokesman said. He added that the organization has been studying memorial forests in other nations for almost a year and will launch the project on Friday, with the blessing of the victims’ families.
The Sewol ferry capsized on April 16, 2014 while making a sharp turn, leaving more than 300 passengers, mostly high school students, dead or missing. The maritime disaster has sparked nationwide grief and political reactions. Many criticized President Park Geun-hye’s administration for its delayed and uncoordinated emergency response.
Last weekend, hundreds of the victims’ relatives marched 22 miles to Seoul from their hometown Ansan to protest the government’s compensation proposal. Many of the parents who lost their children to the tragedy shaved their heads and wore mourning clothes. In response, President Park pledged on Monday to “actively consider” raising the sunken ferry, which is estimated to cost 120 billion won (US $110 million), according to Agence France-Presse.
Tree Plant will be collecting donations through the Sewol Memorial Forest website starting today.
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All images courtesy of Tree Plant
