The Teach North Korean Refugees presented this morning to a small group at a church. It was another moving event.
One of the speakers gave her first public speech. She has worked with her TNKR coaches, the TNKR co-directors worked with her. She never cried or got emotional. But she did during the speech. Her crying set off a chain reaction. The other refugee speaker started crying. Several of the ladies in the audience also started crying. One lady in the audience was so moved by what she heard, she cried as she was asking her question.
The other speaker also broke down several times and the people in the audience were also crying. Even one of the ladies at the event who has been studying North Korean issues for at least a decade almost started crying.
I think what hits people hard is that the speakers today are not prominent, they are just every day North Koreans who had to risk their lives to get to freedom.
During the middle of his speech, Ken suddenly turned to the other refugee speaker: "We made it." That was after a lot of tears at this particular event.
2020 update: In mid-2015, Ken Eom at that time was not showing his face in photographs. I mention to many of our volunteers and fans that just because a refugee is revealing his or her identity now doesn't mean they always do so and that they will always do so. When we had a speech contest shortly after the North Korean dictator's half-brother was assassinated, Ken might have been the only refugee speaker that day who said he was okay with being identified publicly.
