Our Mission

The SILVER Project’s founders, Sunny and Annie Eom, are education activists who care deeply about the broader world and their roles within it.  In 2018, they moved to California from South Korea, and were inspired by the cultural diversity of their new environment. As their perspectives broadened, they were introduced to the concepts of global citizenship, which is the awareness that one’s social role extends beyond their immediate social sphere. Furthermore, as multilingual students themselves, they have come to deeply feel the importance of English as a tool for communication. They feel a strong motivation to spread global citizenship and to teach English to passionate students outside of the US, particularly in their home country of South Korea. 

At the same time, they have become more aware of the bitter realities of poverty in the world, and the importance of education in ending its endless cycles. As a result, they have become motivated to support education in underdeveloped countries. 

Annie and Sunny conceived of SILVER as a way of combining these priorities. The project was designed to directly teach global citizenship and English to students around the world via technology by pairing them with dedicated US student instructors, and to use the profits to provide access to education for underserved students. They shared their concept with Dr. Paul Kim, the founder of a global nonprofit organization Seeds of Empowerment, who recognized their shared goals and offered Sunny and Annie an opportunity to execute their idea under Seeds of Empowerment. This collaboration afforded them the opportunity to bring their idea to life on a larger scale. 

From there, Annie and Sunny recruited like-minded peers to join them in building the SILVER community. They formed a research and developing team and created their own unique curricula. SILVER was successfully launched in January 2021 with the vision of making the world a better place by educating students to become global citizens and proficient English speakers and to combat socioeconomic inequality.