"I want to walk alongside people in a second act of life that grows brighter each day, rather than simply growing older."
Kook Hyung-yoon, a first-year student in the senior model program at Youngsan University, has opened the Moa Lifelong Education Center in Changwon, Gyeongsang Province, and begun full operations. The center helps middle-aged and older adults discover themselves and continue learning. It combines her long career in childcare and social welfare with senior model training to support health management, self-esteem recovery and a return to social life.
Kook worked as a daycare center director for 15 years and holds a master's degree in social welfare. After being diagnosed with cancer in 2014, she overcame the illness, reflected on her life and enrolled this year in Youngsan University's senior model program to explore new possibilities.
In the program, she studied posture and runway walking, makeup, hair, photo posing, modeling and marketing, learning how to care for and express herself. Regular physical checkups and self-image management became part of her routine. She now serves as representative of Class A among first-year students, leading a departmental culture built on consideration and listening.
Kook has woven that experience into the center's curriculum. A licensed social worker and certified instructor in cognitive improvement, she reworked runway walking techniques into cognitive exercises that stimulate the body and the brain, and developed her makeup and self-expression classes into a self-esteem recovery program.
The center offers a range of courses, including Korean fortune-telling based on birth charts, Korean dance-based fitness, use of social media and generative artificial intelligence, brain-body balance classes and spoon percussion. It also runs training courses for after-school program instructors, cognitive improvement specialists, hospital escort managers and daily living support workers, helping mid-life learners take on new challenges and find work.
"For years I focused on caring for others, but now I have learned how to care for and love myself," Kook said. "I want to share the confidence and the results of my education from university with others of my generation."
Keum Han-na, head of the senior model program at Youngsan University, called her "a model case of an adult learner who takes learning beyond personal growth and gives it back to the local community."
