Discarded School Uniforms Turned into Gotjawal Conservation Fund... International School Students Donate 1 Million Won

【Financial News Jeju = Reporter Jeong Yong-bok】 Students from international schools in Jeju English Education City remade unused school uniforms and fabric into bags, sold them, and donated the proceeds to Gotjawal conservation.
According to the Jeju Gotjawal Sharing Foundation on the 1st, ReVoA, an upcycling project team made up of students from Branksome Hall Asia (BHA) and St. Johnsbury Academy Jeju (SJA Jeju), donated 1 million won in project proceeds to the Gotjawal sharing fund at Jeju Gotjawal Provincial Park that day.
The project involved five students: Hwang Su-a, Jo Won-hyeong, and Im Tae-won from BHA, along with Lee Su-in and Jang Ye-ji from SJA Jeju.
The students formed ReVoA BHA and ReVoA SJA at their respective schools before carrying out the project jointly. They used school uniforms and fabric that were no longer needed to create new products, including bags, and sold them directly at bazaars and other events.
The project went beyond simply producing finished goods. The students developed ideas together, planned the products, and took part in every stage, from production and promotion to sales. At the bazaar, they displayed and sold bags and accessories that incorporated the colors and patterns of the original school uniforms.

The students also decided how the proceeds would be used. During the project, they focused on the fact that Gotjawal, a forested landscape unique to Jeju, could be damaged by development and other factors. They decided to use the sales proceeds for Gotjawal conservation.
The money donated by the students will be added to the Jeju Gotjawal Sharing Foundation's Gotjawal sharing fund. The Gotjawal land-sharing initiative involves purchasing privately owned Gotjawal land with donations to reduce the possibility of development and preserve it over the long term. The Jeju Gotjawal Sharing Foundation raises funds to purchase privately owned Gotjawal land.
According to the foundation, the area of privately owned Gotjawal land brought under the sharing initiative had reached 1,157,705 square meters by the end of 2025. Cumulative purchases totaled more than 14.45 billion won, while donations totaled more than 18.23 billion won. The 1 million won raised by the students will also contribute to this privately led source of funding for Gotjawal conservation.
The project also stands out for linking environmental education at school to an actual local issue. Rather than stopping at learning about the need for resource circulation in the classroom, the students used surplus school uniforms as materials and chose how the sales proceeds would be spent. In effect, they created a system in which resource-circulation activities at school lead to funding for local ecological conservation.
Hwang Su-a, a 12th-grade student at BHA, and Lee Su-in, an 11th-grade student at SJA Jeju, who led the project, said, "It was meaningful to directly participate in environmental conservation by turning discarded school uniforms into new bags. We hope this will give students in other regions and countries an opportunity to join in environmental efforts and sharing."


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