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Showing posts from May, 2015

Cherie Yang & Casey Lartigue at Korea University (2015-05-30)

  Within one week, I spoke at Harvard University and Korea University. At yesterday's talk at Korea University, I was joined by Cherie Yang. I outlined the main part of Teach North Korean Refugees and Cherie Yang discussed feedback she has heard from refugees in the project. We have now spoken together about 10 times, and I think yesterday was the smoothest. These were some of the main speakers and organizers. Special thanks to 황현아 for being my contact and patient helper in getting ready for the conference Thanks to Lee Ji Hyun Lee, who kindly guided me to the conference yesterday and paid special attention to me to make sure I didn't have any problems. I also got to meet my new intern! Christine Kim arrived when I was in the USA. And Clare JH Yun, volunteer translator of TNKR, also joined. Clare rescued me when I was trying to do about 5 different things at the same time. Yesterday's conference was fantastic for so many reasons, I absolutely enjoyed it. Now that my mini-sp

Bringing back this blog

Making a guest appearance, at his desk.... Casey Lartigue​ Jr.! That's right, he has had so many meetings, but he is now back at his desk. I mean, he was "here" yesterday for about 45 seconds, to pick up something for a meeting. And  he was here on Thursday or so because he happened to be passing by and thought it might be polite to stop in to say hello, dust off the cobwebs off his desk... Years ago, I came across a quote from H.L. Mencken that was something like: "Editorial writers need to get out of the office at least once a week." I have been living that way for quite a while. That's why I tell people that I'm on Facebook, but I'm not *into* Facebook. I prefer living Facebook--connecting, talking--then sometimes I take a break to post on Facebook what I have done. Then when someone asks me, "What have you been up to?" I can say, "Let's check Facebook so I can remember." * * * Social media downdate It should

2015-05-17 Sharon Jang feature (Daily Mail, U.K.)

This was the headline for the article: "Woman, 23, reveals how she trekked for two months across mountains and crocodile-infested river to flee North Korea after being forced to work for 15 hours a day down a coal mine for 50p a day." https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3089313/North-Korean-refugee-forced-work-coal-reveals-journey.html Below are photos from the fun photo shoot that day, to get prepared for John Power's article about Sharon Jang. One of her tutors, Peter Daley, joined to teach a class as part of the photo shoot. TNKR co-founder Eunkoo Lee also joined that day. Scroll down the article , you will see Ken Eom's face censored. He is now public, but that was not the case in all of 2015 when he joined TNKR. 2020 comment: A few days ago, an American colleague in the USA who has donated to TNKR a few times wrote to me that he is amazed that the North Korean refugees he has encountered remain so optimistic.  Despite the many things that Sharon went throug

2015-05-16 TNKR presentation--"We made it."

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

2015-05-09 TNKR Double Orientation (Tutors and Refugees)

We had two orientation sessions getting ready for our English Matching session on 5/16.  * We made the decision a few months ago to start holding orientation a week in advance of the Matching session. We weren't sure we could get people to come out two weeks in a row. It turned out to be one of the best decisions we've made. Orientation gives us a chance to get to know both the tutors and refugees in advance of the Matching session. Instead of rushing through the orientation to get to the matches, and to do it all within 2 hours, we set aside time the week before to explain the project in detail, to give them time to answer questions. I have also gotten better at handling these sessions, keeping them on schedule and explaining the project so that the volunteers clearly understand it. * The refugees who joined today, they were fantastic, too. They have all been waiting more than a month to join us. They are really thankful and ready to get started. Seven of them joined today, t