From Sept. 30 to Oct. 2, the 4th Right Light Festival was held on campus to motivate students to be more engaged in issues regarding discrimination and negligence in modern society.

Since 2015, Right Light Festival has been striving to bring attention to minority’s rights and to fight against injustice in today’s society. 

For this year, the issues regarding the neglected rights of the disabled, women, queer, and refugees were brought up and discussed throughout the festival. 

With the slogan “to be the light that reaches everyone,” they called people to be more open and tolerant, emphasizing the importance of embracing the differences between people and respecting them as who they are.  

During the three days of the festival, students were able to join various booth activities that provided unique experiences at Student Union Building. 

A total of 12 booths were organized, each with different meanings and concepts. In the lobby of the building, special booths which dealt with the issues regarding sexuality and integration were set up by Enable, the 51st student council, and the festival’s planning team.

“Discrimination is an everyday reality to migrant women,” said Yoo Ga-hwan, a member of Bethelens, a group of youth activitists under Rainbow Youth Center. Bethelens opened a booth on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 to break the prevalent prejudices and biased views on migrant women.

Students were invited to solve quizzes that were made by Bethelens with the aim of changing the negative perception on multicultural families and migrant women. According to Yoo, Bethelens is currently uploading interviews with migrant women on YouTube to share their promising careers.

“It was good to see people enjoying the festival as well as reconsidering the meanings of discrimination in everyday life,” Yoo remarked.

Right Light Festival embraces various voices of society

“Students participated in the booth activities more than I expected,” Yoo further commented. “More than half of the goods we prepared were all distributed on the first day of the festival. I’m so glad that the booths were run successfully.”

Dance and music performances were also held at the Plaza of Student Union Building. Under the theme of alerting modern society to be more equal and liberal, performances that had negative messages or abusive implications against the social minority were strictly banned.

Along with the booths and performances, open seminars and movie screenings on diverse issues were held by various clubs throughout the festival. On Oct. 1, a web series screening with the Guest Visit (GV) was hosted by Byunnal, an Ewha student club that fights to protect the rights of LGBTQ.

About 70 Ewha students joined to watch “Out of Breath,” a queer web series uploaded on YouTube. 

In the GV session, Soo Not Sue, the YouTuber and the director of “Out of Breath,” and Sohn Su-hyun, the main actress of the web series, were invited to talk about what it was like to create queer content.

“Through this festival, I realized how close-minded our society was,” remarked Kim Da-eun, a freshman from HOKMA College of General Education. “Fear of discrimination – discrimination from your employers, peers, and work – is still a huge issue these days. I’m glad that Right Light Festival brought this issue up to discuss with Ewha students. Being a minority should be a non-issue in every field of human endeavor.”

저작권자 © Ewha Voice 무단전재 및 재배포 금지