Dear Korean Children’s Union (KCU) members across the country,
    Dear delegates to the joint national meeting of the KCU held in celebration of the 66th anniversary of its founding,
    I feel very happy and glad today to see you, our proud KCU delegates, who have come all the way from various parts of the country－ranging from Jongilbong Secondary School at the foot of Mt. Paektu to Chodo Secondary School on the front line of the country–and other model KCU members.
    To see your dignified appearances and dear faces, I feel as if I am seeing your fellows and teachers, your parents, brothers and sisters who saw you off on your journey to Pyongyang.
    I extend warm congratulations to you delegates and other KCU members across the country, who are greeting the KCU founding anniversary amidst great concern and blessing of the Workers’ Party of Korea and the Korean people in the hope-filled period, when the dawn of a thriving socialist country is breaking.
    My warm greetings also go to your teachers and parents who are making efforts to bring you up to be excellent persons.
    June 6 is a cherished holiday for our Party and all our people as well as for the KCU.
    There are no schoolchildren in the world like our KCU members, millions of whom are all rallied behind their organization with red neckties around their necks and are growing up to be reliable masters of the future.
    Our KCU members boundlessly love their benevolent Party and motherland that embrace them and bring them up, and are diligent in studying, lively and exalting the honour of their country by dint of their brilliant talents.
    For our Party and country, you dear KCU members are treasures more valuable than billions of tons of gold, and represent our hope and future.
    In the past, our reliable KCU members, by carrying forward the revolutionary traditions of the Anti-Japanese Children’s Corps, fought bravely for their motherland and people, flying proudly the flag of the KCU, and performed many laudable deeds.
    Children’s vanguard and child guerrillas were born in our country and such heroic deeds as defending the portraits of their leaders and rescuing forests from fire even by sacrificing their lives were performed by our KCU members, the first of their kinds among their peers in the world.
    Though young, they are patriots as they have donated Sonyon (children) tanks, aircraft and vessels to the Korean People’s Army and rendered contributions to socialist construction and the development of their country’s economy.
    In the days when the country was experiencing trials of the “Arduous March,” they, overcoming the trials, displayed patriotism as they zealously studied and briskly conducted the movement of schools assisting military units and other socio-political activities.
    Today the former KCU members have become heroes and labour innovators, who are held dear and respected by people across the country, or officials in charge of important national affairs. Now they are here to congratulate the KCU members of a new generation.
    Our Party and people regard it as a source of great pleasure and pride to have such an excellent children’s organization, and a bright, promising morrow is in store for Songun Korea with a large contingent of young revolutionaries numbering in millions.
    Today the KCU has developed into a powerful organization of successors to the revolution demonstrating its dignity to the world, as it was nurtured in the benevolent embrace of generalissimo Kim Il Sung and generalissimo Kim Jong Il who were endowed with boundless affection for children, the future of the nation.
    Every trace on the path traversed by the KCU is associated with the warm care of the generalissimos who set forth new slogans for it in keeping with the advance of the revolution and guided its work step by step to train its members into true sons and daughters who are infinitely loyal to the Party and their socialist motherland.
    Our generalissimos Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il were ever-victorious, iron-willed commanders who made the enemy shiver with fear, but to the schoolchildren, they were benevolent fathers who loved them dearly and showed scrupulous care for their learning.
    They set it as an eternal policy of the DPRK to give free education to the children across the country and supply them with new school uniforms, the first policy of its kind in the world, had splendid palaces and camps built for them in the best locations of the country, and were always anxious to provide them with better things.
    The world knows no such leaders as our great generalissimos who, calling children kings of the country, put forward taking care of them as the most important of the affairs of the Party and the state, and devoted their whole lives to the good of the children.
    The KCU is, indeed, a glorious Kim Il Sung’s and Kim Jong Il’s organization of children, which developed under their warm care, and membership of this organization is a source of great pride and glory for the KCU members.
    Dear KCU members,
    You are successors to the Songun revolution and masters of the future.
    The future of Korea is yours, and your appearances reflect the future of the country.
    Our Party is determined to hand down to you a thriving socialist country that will be the best in the world.
    The prosperous and powerful Korea of which you will be in charge will be a country where laughter of joy brims over in every house, all the people are harmonious and which is the strongest in the world.
    It is just you who should take charge of this great country and build it better.
    The KCU members should always keep in mind the great trust in and care for them shown by generalissimo Kim Il Sung and generalissimo Kim Jong Il and make positive efforts to learn from the glorious childhood of the generalissimos as sunflowers turn towards the sun. You should stoutly carry on the line of the revolution flying the flag of the immortal Sun in front of the KCU flag.
    The KPA and the youth league are the vanguard of the Songun revolution in carrying out the cause of our Party, and the KCU is their reliable reserve.
    The KCU members should become genuine young revolutionaries and vanguard in the Songun era, who defend the Party unto death, as Kim Ki Song and Kim Kum Sun, heroic members of the Anti-Japanese Children’s Corps, did and the child guerrillas did during the Fatherland Liberation War, and advance straightforward along the road indicated by the Party.
    What is important for the KCU members at present is to prepare themselves to be competent revolutionaries, knowledgeable, morally sound and physically strong, and pillars of a thriving Korea.
    The future appearance of a thriving Korea will be represented first in their academic records.
    In our country, where space rockets are launched and CNC machines produced in large quantities now and which will attain the cutting edge in future, schoolchildren with poor records are good for nothing and cannot keep up with the advance of the country.
    Schoolchildren should hold high the slogan, Learn for a thriving Korea, and learn and learn zealously without idling away even a moment.
    Inventors and scientists who will distinguish themselves worldwide with great achievements should be produced from among the KCU members.
    Schoolchildren should study well, observe the socialist ethics, always love their organizations, collective and fellows, respect their teachers and elders, and take an active part in sports and do-good-deeds movement out of patriotism, thus becoming model KCU members.
    The organizational life in the KCU is the political life people experience for the first time in their life.
    The red necktie of the KCU has been inherited from the Anti-Japanese Children’s Corps, and is also a part of the red flag of the Workers’ Party of Korea.
    The KCU members, bearing in their minds that the honour of Party membership and the gold medal of Hero all start from the red necktie and badge of the KCU, should take part in the organizational life voluntarily and sincerely.
    They should acquire the habit of valuing their organizations, taking voluntary and active part in the organizational life and implementing the tasks assigned by their sub-branch organizations without fail.
    Standing behind them are the instructors of the KCU and the teachers in charge of their classes and sub-branches of the KCU concurrently; they are their most intimate mentors and protectors of their political integrity.
    Today our Party places great trust in the instructors of the KCU and the teachers in charge of its sub-branches.
    It wishes they, taking their cue from the instructors of the Anti-Japanese Children’s Corps, would take care of and love our valuable KCU members with parental affection and become the roots and genuine teachers that bring their talents into full bloom and lead them to live a genuine life.
    Our Party and the government of our Republic, true to the noble spirit of generalissimo Kim Il Sung and generalissimo Kim Jong Il of loving the rising generations, will give top priority to the work for them over all other affairs, and make every effort to bring our beloved KCU members up to be happiest in the world and excellent pillars of Songun Korea.
    Dear KCU members across the country,
    I once again extend warm congratulations to you on your celebration of your holiday, June 6, amidst great concern and blessing of our Party and people.
    I once again offer warm greetings to your teachers and parents who are devoting themselves for a brighter future of our powerful country, our socialist motherland.
    May a bright future be with you, rising generations of Kim Il Sung’s and Kim Jong Il’s Korea!