Teach
North Korean Refugees earlier today hosted its 20th English Matching
session. We have now matched 124 refugees, 174 volunteer teachers, and 9
South Koreans working for NGOs or helping NK refugees in some way.
Special thanks to Nina Hong, Katie Yuk, Claire Jessica Tighe, Kristen Lefebvre, Gabrielle Wray, Angela Miller, Noa Sunyoung Lim, Hannah Gzik, Nicole Kahansky, Suzanne Atwill Stewart for joining TNKR.
It was a particularly sweet session--7 North Korean refugees, 10 volunteers, 1 reporter, 1 Ambassador, 2 co-directors, 1 cameraman, and 1 donor--and a partridge in a pear tree!
Because of rumors of dating, we banned male tutors from this session (as I explain in more detail at the bottom of this post).
One refugee was clear. Her English wasn't that great, but she said: "I want strict teacher."
We want to create a project so serious students like her won't have volunteers trying to get her to go hiking or hanging out. I got criticized by some males for doing this, but I wasn't going to waste my time with an education program that wasn't special. I am not your wingman!
It was goodbye to Pam Davidson for a while. She has been with TNKR for several months, introduced to us by former Academic Adviser Joo Yeon Cho. She has been a volunteer with TNKR, Mumangcho, and was the first TNKR tutor to donate to us, much to our surprise. Before then, Eunkoo and I had been spending out of pocket.
People would ask, "What's your budget?" I would respond, "WHAT BUDGET?" Somehow people were assuming that we were sitting on some money, when the reality is that everyone was volunteering and giving their time. TNKR then was a side hustle--with all hustle, and no profit.
Mike Ashley also joined us--to donate two computers to TNKR! We aren't sure what we will do with them, we willl try to figure out a way to use them to help NK refugees. We may offer them as a prize or in some way.
We talked with a few of the volunteers after the session, and they had some good ideas. As usual, I quickly assigned them to lead the teams to get the tasks done. I have done a lot of volunteer work over the years, I don't pay attention to people making suggestions that no one is responsible for. Why not have the person who comes up with the idea take the lead in getting it started?
We asked the refugees to explain their motivation for joining TNKR:
* career prospects
* advancement in her current career
* she knows no English, and now that her 4 year old child is learning it, she is motivated to learn, too.
* wants to be an exchange student, live abroad
* wants to be an advocate for NK human rights
* wants to be an exchange student, needs good test scores
* wants to open her own NGO
We wrapped up by going to Subway. We talked and got to know each other. Then, what a surprise! One student and teacher duo began studying while we were at Subway. I had told them all to get started within the first week--they didn't even wait for us to wrap up today.
As always, special thanks to Lee Eunkoo, my co-director and co-founder of TNKR. I'm the pretty face of TNKR, but she is the lady who works behind the scenes to get things done. Her professionalism keeps the TNKR train running on time and allows us to have a reputation for professionalism.
If you can't join us in person, you can always make a donation to support our activities:
www.lovetnkr.org/donate
Here's the report in Korean, as posted by the Mulmangcho Human Rights Institute. http://mulmangcho.org/?c=7/42&uid=3102
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2020-11-01 reflection
2014-11-01, when TNKR had another major challenge! We had started in 2013, started to get somewhat organized at the end of that year, then 2014 we started attracting more attention.
Not all of the attention was wanted. We were getting warned by male tutors that playboys were targeting TNKR. Then we started hearing rumors about dating between students and tutors.
In response, I banned male tutors from the 2014-11-01 Matching session. Some males complained that I was treating them like predators, I was accused of violating the human rights of refugees and tutors, others were saying I should be sued, investigated, etc. I offered to connect the complainers to the appropriate government agency or court, because if TNKR was going to get shut down over that, then it was better to get it over with in 2014 when I still had job offers in the USA rather than years later.
Life went on, despite their dramatic complaints and threats, and we had the Females-only Matching session this day six years ago.
They didn't know that another much more prominent organization tutoring NK refugees had only same-sex tutoring, resulting in long waiting lists for female refugees, and that another organization had a bad reputation because of dating. I guess I got the attacks because TNKR was very public about the challenge we were facing.
We were considering trying to form TNKR as an official organization, rather than the fly-by-night group we were then. We would need to raise money and also develop a solid organizational structure.
Which way was TNKR going to go? We had some of the refugees telling us that they didn't want the pressure of dating or socializing. From talking to them, we learned that some of them felt so grateful to volunteers that they felt obligated to buy them things, to tell their stories, to go hiking or hanging out with them as thanks. Of course, not every refugee was concerned about that, some were also hot-to-trot and eager to hang out with tutors.
Of course, new tutors (and students) joining us had no idea about the challenges, they were blind people who only understood the part of the elephant they wanted to feel.
We had to decide which students we would focus on--the studiers or the socializers? Having both is like having a microwave freezer.
As I said then: I am not anyone's wingman. The socializers could find each other online or at social clubs, rather than through TNKR.
Then one of the students showed at the session said: "I want strict teacher."
We had such a wonderful session that day, we considered continuing with same gender studying, but we wondered about the impact on male refugees. When we later had a males-only session, it was so quiet during the session, little enthusiasm, and there seemed to be some resentment directed at me. The male tutors only wanted one student each, unlike other sessions where tutors were willing to accept two or three students.
We decided to continue with co-ed studying, but to put systems in place that would discourage socializing and dating.