Project Goals

Let me begin this editorial series by designing an evaluation of the Korean War Children's Memorial project. How are we to evaluate effectiveness of goal attainment? To do that we have to articulate measurable goals for the project and to do that we need to state, as explicitly as possible, the "problem" we wish to address with the creation of the Korean War Children's Memorial and web site. The evaluation must be an analysis of the extent to which the problem was solved and not merely a listing of the activities we engaged in. We need to take a look at "outcomes" and not merely "outputs".

So the basic question is "Why are we doing this? What is the problem that warrants the expenditure of so much energy and resources to achieve its resolution? Let me see if I can articulate the problem:

The Problem is the lack of public awareness of the existence,nature and scale of the compassionate humanitarian aid rendered the children of Korea during the war by American armed forces.

Goal One

a. The Korean War is called "The Forgotten War". Not only do few members of our society today know much of that war but there is an important element in it that is totally unknown today, fifty years later. What has never been adequately publicized or possibly even noticed, is the relationship of the US armed forces to the children of Korea during the war. So the first goal of the project is to collect information on the compassionate aid the US forces rendered the children of Korea from June 1950 to the end of 1954. By "collect" we mean to conduct extensive searches in as many traditional library sources as possible for articles, stories and reports on the topic. The search shall also be conducted in the National Archives, in the US Military Chaplain's Corps Archives and in the archives of the major voluntary and religious organizations working with and on behalf of the children of Korea during the war such as the Christian Children's Fund. A search of sources of information on the topic shall also be conducted via the Internet and via voluntary associations of military units that served in Korea during the war years. We anticipate collecting over 2,000 documents and photographs on the topic.

Goal Two

b. The second goal of the project is to disseminate this information. This shall be done via the publication of a web site www.koreanchildren.org that shall be a comprehensive source of the information gathered on the topic. Via regular "press releases" the media in the U.S., Korea and other nations shall be informed of this project and the information that is available on it. The intent is to generate stories in newspapers, magazines, television, and radio and in other channels of communication on the topic. A book on the topic will bring the material together for popular reading. We will consider this goal successful if; 1) by 27 July 2003, the 50th anniversary of the armistice that ended the hostilities of the Korean War, over 100,000 "hits" will have been made on the project web site. 2) by the end of December, 2004 there will have been published at least 200 articles in newspapers and magazines in the US on this subject. 3). at least one major TV program will have been generated and 4). at least 5,000 copies of the book will have been sold.

Goal Three

c. A third goal is to ensure that the information gathered is not again lost to those who would write about the history of the Korean War. This will be done by depositing all the material gathered for this project in the Korean War Museum in Ohio (?). A Compact Disk will be published with all the material gathered on it in a digitized format for the use of libraries and for personal collections. The CD would be inserted in all copies of the book to be published on the topic.

Goal Four

d. The fourth goal of the project is to build a small Korean War Children's Memorial pavilion in Bellingham, Washington honoring the aid the American servicemen rendered the children of Korea during the war. The generation of funds for the building of the Korean War Children's Memorial will, to an extent, be a measure of success of goals one and two, above.

George F. Drake, Ph.D., 
Coordinator Korean War Children's Memorial

EDP-Goals