2020 TNKR's Year of Mentoring

A few months ago, I declared that 2020 would be TNKR's Year of Mentoring. I love our main projects and activities, but in our immediate future, I am trying to move TNKR in the direction of engaging North Korean refugees seeking employment and education opportunities.

This Sunday we will be having another orientation for potential volunteers in our new Track 3 Employment and Education Opportunities project. If we do it well, this will turn into TNKR's main project. I wanted to do this from about three years ago, but TNKR was still too weak financially or structurally to take on a new project. We are still a bit unstable with our office situation and some other challenges, but we are strong enough to start up this project.

We spend a lot of time talking to NK refugees, but not interviewing them about North Korea, their escapes, mining them for research data or chit-chatting. Listening, I could hear they were seeking real opportunities in education and employment. At times, we have some North Korean refugees who barely have money in their bank accounts answering endless questions from reporters or researchers about North Korea, China, reunification, their escapes, Kim Jong-un or high-level geopolitical talks. I suspect they would prefer to have stable jobs.

www.lovetnkr.org/mentor
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In the last week, we have had many activities and meetings with NK refugees.

* I gave two different speeches to NK refugee adolescents.
* We had several 1:1 sessions with NK refugees about their employment and education goals.
* We talked with North Korean refugees about the new mentoring project.
* We heard from some North Korean refugees about their experiences in TNKR and got good feedback about volunteers and about the type of mentors they would like to have.

One day, we will be rich enough to hire an academic team so we can develop things even more.

In addition to those things, I moderated a speech event with three NK refugee speakers, did a podcast interview with a North Korean refugee, did a lot of organizing and planning behind the scenes, hosted an orientation with volunteers, did two or three media interviews.

One of my fans on Facebook asked me why I haven't been posting on Facebook. Because the fact that I am not a fan of Facebook, I have been out doing things and haven't had time to post about them until today (thus, the flurry of posts that might alarm some on Facebook).

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The Casey Lartigue Show

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