About – Wetopia Gardens

Wetopia School

Wetopia Gardens

Wetopia School is an independent charter school located in Bonghwa, Korea. It was established in 2007 to claim to stand for a “career development school that nurtures global leaders.” All of the students prepare their own meals, do farming on their own, and raise chickens in a natural poultry farming method, and this implements rural community education.

Wetopia School has a private garden registered in the country named Wetopia Garden. Every student makes their own garden every year. Gardening majors design and build Wetopia Garden that is one-hectare large. They also interview Korea’s leading gardeners and publish articles in the gardening magazine “Monthly Gardening,” and exhibit their gardens in various garden shows. Students and teachers from Wetopia School participated in Hanpyeong Garden Festival hosted by the Suncheonman National Garden, and all of them won the First Prize, Grand Prize, and Excellence Award.

The charter of Wetopia Garden is “human being is nature that thinks,” which looks for the possibility of human civilization and nature to co-exist and create new nature.

Introduce

Min, YoungJu

Agent Min, Young Ju

Young ju Min is the founder of the Wetopia School, a philosopher, a poet, a writer, and a garden designer. He has a philosophy that people are meant to be valued and respected, and education is a tool to help them find and develop their own dignity. Since 1993, he has been working for a self-sustaining planning community in Korea which he founded; thousands of people have participated in his self-development program over 25 years and experienced a new horizon of recognition.

For him, education, community, writing, and garden design are to open up new possibilities for mankind and civilization and to create a better world. He conceives and cultivates Wetopia Garden with his students.

Also, through Wetopia School, he presents alternatives to contemporary civilization which reached its limit and cultivates talents who can become great leaders.

Min, JinYeong

Student Min, Jinyoung

JinYeong Min was born in 1998. She grew up in a rural community from her early age and entered Wetopia School in 2011. While taking a farmer-culture class, she was responsible for organic garden farming, raising chickens using organic poultry, and making compost with excrement.

She became interested in gardening while creating a ‘palm garden’ in a garden class in 2014. Since then, she has been working as a student gardener for ‘Wetopia Garden,’ which is a part of Wetopia School, and studying gardening. In 2017, she won the First Prize at the student government of ‘Hanpyeong Garden Festival,’ Suncheonman National Garden, with Jimin Kwon, a student from the same school.

In 2018, she won the Grand Prize for the artist sector from Hanpyeong Garden Festival. Based on Wetopia School’s philosophy, “learning is done on the spot,” she keeps learning from various hands-on experiences. Jinyoung’s dream is to tell the world about the beauty of Korea’s gardens and to create a world where all humans, plants and animals can live in peace.

Kwon, JiMin

Student Kwon, Jimin

JiMin Kwon was born in Korea in 1999. She has attended an alternative school in a city since elementary school, so she had no idea about gardening. However, when she entered Wetopia School at the age of fifteen in 2014, she became interested in flowers, nature, and gardening, while creating gardens.

Since then, she has been working as a student garden designer at Wetopia Garden, which is a part of Wetopia School, and has been working on designing, construction, and management of Wetopia Garden.

In 2017, she made a great work with her peer Jinyoung Min, and became a youngest youngest First Prize winner of the student sector from Hanpyeong Garden Festival of Suncheonman National Garden. Jimin Kwon is interested in gardening and breeding. She has been researching Korean native plants to make them world-class garden plants, and is constantly studying to create gardens that have philosophy.