Skip to main content

2020-11-12 Nothing compares to TNKR



I was delighted to host Eunhee Park at a speech last week to graduate students. Eunhee has spoken at the Asia Liberty Forum, the Oslo Freedom Forum, given a TEDx Talk, and also won local English speech contests. She is the kind of speaker who is ready to a thoughtful speech, to answer any questions, and to even ask questions of the audience.

Some audiences aren't ready for a speaker like her ready to engage them! Many audiences just want to passively listen. I gave a speech to them about a month ago, then invited Eunhee to follow up.



*****************************************************
Nothing compares to TNKR

A few years ago, when high school students applied to volunteer with TNKR, I was like the old neighbor yelling, "You kids get out of my yard!" After experiencing enough high school kids expecting to get a volunteer certificate for volunteering for a few hours then never contacting us again, I wrote them off. We were trying to build an organization, so young people with such short-term thinking were not going to fit in our plans.

Everything changed in 2018. Two high school kids came to me, asking if they could tutor North Korean refugees. As I do with high school kids (and increasingly with adults), I challenged them to get involved in other ways first. TNKR needs to grow as an organization, so having people pop-up then disappear wasn't going to help us become a sustainable organization.

The two youngsters--Eugene and Jun--kept coming back, probably trying to prove they weren't like other popup volunteers. They kept coming up with ideas about how to help, then finally they established the TNKR Global High School Union! Not only did they bring more people with them, and even the moms started getting involved! 

Every meeting with them is uplifting. A few days ago we met with some of the moms to plan for 2021.

It was encouraging hearing the wonderful things they were saying about TNKR, about the impact it has had on their children. Most of all, they have made it clear to us that this is not a one-time project, that they want to keep it going, that there is a clear plan of succession in the leadership. They made it clear: "Nothing compares with TNKR."

A big part of it seems to be that we didn't make it easy on their children, instead expecting them to raise their level. As a result of them, we have been able to raise our level of engagement with high school volunteers, making TNKR a stronger organization. Now we plan our activities with the TNKR GHSU youngsters in mind, thinking about ways to have them involved.

I am looking forward to the day they say we are giving them too many opportunities, which would take us back full circle to "you kids, get out of my yard!"




*****************************************************

New expectations for adult volunteers

TNKR will probably be setting up a formal internship program within the next few months. It will be more likely to happen when we have someone take charge of running it. 

In the meantime, we are willing to accept TNKR members as volunteers.






*****************************************************
South Korean supporters

We met with a TNKR fan who will be getting more involved with TNKR. He will be having an important role that will help further boost our transparency. He works with a really huge company, our budget could fit within his organization's budget without anyone even noticing us. However, he respects what we are doing, and in particular he is inspired by the American co-founder engaging with North Korean refugees.




We recently had a Korean business professional (not pictured) visit our office, he said he felt sad when he realized that our office was so humble. He knows about the professional backgrounds of the co-founders, he thinks we should be working in a huge office with a full staff ready to assist us. I told him: Eunkoo and I have both worked at huge offices, and we absolutely agree with him. So he needs to get to work making it happen!

*****************************************************
TEDx Talker

A new TNKR student recently gave a TEDx Talk. It is always delightful when such fluent North Korean refugee English speakers still believe that TNKR is worthy of them joining. When refugees get to a certain level of English, they have so many people chasing them, trying to get them into their activities or programs. In our case, they come looking for us.




*****************************************************
Media Strategy? What Media Strategy?

I occasionally get asked what is TNKR's media strategy. People don't believe me when I say we don't have one, that we don't have a media list. It seems that our "strategy" is having good results.

The weekend before, we were featured by South Korea's Ministry of Unification.
This past weekend, it was the BBC.

A few days ago, we had a team of researchers interview the co-founders.
And over the weekend, I did a long online interview with the podcast Just Interesting People.



Popular posts from this blog

2022-12-09 Seoul Honorary Citizenship (ceremony & media roundup)

  On September 29, 2022, I was informed that I had been awarded Seoul Honorary Citizenship. December 9th, I was one of the 18 non-Koreans to receive Seoul Honorary Citizenship.  I was delighted to have several colleagues and supporters join me at the ceremony. They all have had a special role in my activities here. Here's the media roundup so far: The Korea Times (English) https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2022/12/113_341484.html Yonhap (English) https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20221211001200320 (Korean) https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20221210022100004 (French) https://fr.yna.co.kr/view/AFR20221211001000884 (Spanish) https://sp.yna.co.kr/view/ASP20221211000900883 K-Odyssey https://m.k-odyssey.com/news/newsview.php?ncode=179556481389320 Newsis https://www.newsis.com/view/?id=NISX20221209_0002118460 Chosun https://www.chosun.com/national/national_general/2022/12/11/S2OA76535FCBHFIQI7R5P7HYYM/ Daum News https://v.daum.net/v/20221211111512898 MSN https://www.msn.com/ko-kr/news/n...

2015-01-09 Asia Liberty Forum (Kathmandu, Nepal)

I was pleased to be one of the speakers at the 3rd Asia Liberty Forum, held this time in Kathmandu, Nepal. Freedom Speakers International has presented at the Asia Liberty Forum several times. I was invited in 2014 and have been able to invite North Korean refugees to also speak at the forum. 2014, New Delhi, India Speakers: Chanyang Ju, Casey Lartigue Jr. https://caseylartigue.blogspot.com/2014/01/07-09-ALF-India.html http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/opinion/2014/01/137_149698.html https://www.facebook.com/CaseyLartigue/posts/1308010646009594 2015, Kathmandu, Nepal Speaker: Casey Lartigue https://caseylartigue.blogspot.com/2015/01/2015-01-09-asia-liberty-forum-kathmandu.html 2018 Jakarta, Indonesia Speakers: Eunhee Park, Casey Lartigue FSI was named a finalist for the Asia Liberty Award https://caseylartigue.blogspot.com/2021/01/11-Asia-liberty-award.html https://www.atlasnetwork.org/news/article/organizations-from-afghanistan-nepal-south-korea-named-finalists-for-asia-l 2019, Colomb...

2016-01-31 Speech coaching

  On February 2, 2016, Teach North Korean Refugees (now Freedom Speakers International) will be introducing itself to the American Women's Club. Co-directors Casey Lartigue and Eunkoo Lee will be telling AWC about the wonderful project we co-founded in March 2013. Then three refugees participating in our project will give speeches. One of our speakers is Ken Eom. He's a wonderful guy, he's been in our program since last March. Thanks to his tutors and coaches, as well as his own effort, he has improved so much. His natural sense of humor has always been there, and now with practice and assistance, he has improved so much. The two other speakers will be giving their first public speeches. One of them was a bit nervous, so she asked if she could meet Eunkoo and me today.. Even though I have known her since early 2015, I had never heard her story so it was good for me to get a preview.  I'm sure she will do quite well. 2021 update: The lady hiding her face is Eunhee Park. ...

Race, race, race

On the issue of race: Clinton goes first, (surprisingly) without her Selma accent. Biden doesn’t mention that there is a clean and article black person on the stage. Richardson says the next president must talk about race…we need less talk about race, and more about individual action. Edwards said something, apparently to help us transition to the only somewhat black candidate on the panel. Obama has the home field advantage being at Howard, but doesn’t do much with the initial question. Kucinich says that people are told to raise themselves up by their own bootstraps, but then they steal the boots. He gets the loudest cheers. This will be a long night if that continues... Gravel —who? Dodd —like the 64th team in the NCAA basketball pool, Dodd should be one and done. Brb, I’m checking on the NBA draft… CJL

Breen's column that outraged Samsung

“What People Got for Christmas” Michael Breen The Korea Times December 25, 2009 At this time of year when Seoul’s bare winter trees are wrapped in beckoning lights ― blue and white are the in colors ― and Merry Xmas signs at hotels and department stores are really saying come-hither-gentle-reveler-and-empty-your-purse, and when expensive restaurants belch noisy year-end office party groups onto every street and the karaoke rooms are full, it is tempting to declare that Christmas has lost its soul. But that would be a mistake. Christmas is a time for giving, and, before they can be given, gifts have to be bought. Commerce is good. Here, as proof, is a round up of some of the gifts given and received today by people in the news. Samsung, the world’s largest conglomerate and the rock upon which the Korean economy rests, sent traditional year-end cards offering best wishes for 2010 to the country’s politicians, prosecutors and journalists, along with 50 million w...