The Casey Lartigue Show!

FSI has moved into a better institutional neighborhood where we are the poorest in the area. In August 2022, I was elected as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Freedom Speakers International (FSI) and in January 2023 FSI achieved incorporation status in South Korea. This has meant that FSI must upgrade operations and structure and I am the one, as chairman and co-president, who will be blamed if it doesn’t happen. I really should not be the chairman, for a variety of reasons, but anyway I am. Eunkoo and I are not the typical executives of a growing organization. In addition to being mainly responsible for building and fundraising for the organization, we are the hands-on leaders who are constantly in contact with North Korean refugee speakers. We look forward to the day we can afford staff to handle many tasks. Until then we can expect to continue having more days like yesterday, even on Eunkoo’s birthday. 2023-02-10 Meeting #1: planning We started Eunkoo’s birthday with a planning...

  It was international news when 12 North Korean waitresses and a male manager who worked at a restaurant operated by the North Korean regime in China arrived in South Korea in 2016.  The waitresses have mostly maintained a low profile. There have been numerous accusations and assertions, with some saying the waitresses didn't want to escape, some accused the Park Geun-hye administration of playing politics by releasing details of the case, etc., etc., etc. My blog at the Korea Times today features an exclusive interview with one of the former North Korean waitresses who filed a criminal case against the former manager. You can read about it here on the Korea Times website. https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/opinion/2023/02/728_345165.html   Keep in mind that there are many more facts to the case and that it is much deeper than this brief excerpt of her comments. She also shared legal documents that I shared with the Korea Times well in advance to give them time to review t...

Yuna Jung, a Keynote Speaker with Freedom Speakers International, was the featured speaker with a group of college students visiting from the USA. Yuna has been a regular commentator on South Korean TV since 2017 and giving speeches in English since 2019 (she won FSI's 11th English speech contest). When audience members ask her a question it seems that she has been waiting for them to answer. There is no hesitation, she has answers that are a mixture of humor, information, and enthusiasm but also seriousness and joy. Yuna has some hilarious stories. She says some of them in her speeches but Q&A is when she really shines. Yuna was the winner of FSI's 11th English Speech Contest, in September 2020. Next month, Yuna will be a featured speaker at the Asia Liberty Forum 2022. At a few moments, she did show her anger about the way North Koreans are treated as well as about a few other things. When I asked if we should take a photo at the end the students were jockeying for the op...

Eunmi Park is back at the FSI office to record another video!   She had to work on her own for a while today because I was getting prepared to give a speech . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSWPJPxPKg0 Update: Yesterday started off as a typical day at Freedom Speakers International. Work, work, work. Then, in the afternoon, it became WORK, WORK, WORK!!! In the early afternoon, we notified some teachers from a university English teaching program that they had been selected by North Korean refugees. Many people don't check their emails so we are still waiting to confirm with some volunteers. At 3 pm, I had a Zoom call with Greenlight to Freedom co-author Songmi Han to get prepared for our speech starting three hours later. At 4 pm, Eunmi Park arrived. She worked on her next YouTube video until almost 6 pm. I was putting the finishing touches on a 60-minute speech that I was going to be giving at 6 pm. Our staff then set up the camera, but at first the sound on my microphone was low ...

  Meeting North Koreans outside the country in freedom (koreatimes.co.kr)

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oz54rdvOQ0&list=PLn7xtnmarHFr9v99a4urREm3DymgoVcKo&index=1 YouTube Live Chat, Yuna Jung featuring Casey Lartigue Support Freedom Speakers International

Yesterday started with TNKR Special Ambassador Cherie Yang  getting interviewed on TBS eFM radio about her new YouTube channel . It would have already been a big day if we had taken the rest of the day off. But we didn't! This, of course, will alarm my number one cheerleader,  Eben Appleton , who wants me to continue saving the world, but she is also always worried that I'm not getting rest and not socializing enough.

  Cherie Yang had her debut as a public speaker, yesterday at Gulf Coast University. And what a wonderful debut it was! She was graceful and poignant in discussing her escape from North Korea. Thanks to her speech coach, Karissa Bryant, in particular, for helping her with speaking tips and feedback to get her prepared for her big day, and tutors Julie Meyer Super, Seán Brophy, Kristi Cashin. Cherie and I spoke to a crowd of more than 80 students in the morning. After more than 10 minutes, she began to cry when discussing what happened to her father after they escaped from North Korea.  I asked the students for tissue, and I noticed that many of the female students were also crying. She finally composed herself but was covering her face with her speech notes. Later, we reviewed the video, and she was surprised that she didn't start crying until she had almost finished the speech--she thought she had cried the entire time. Then last night, we spoke to the Foundation for Governme...

BBC World Service --"21-year-old Yeonmi Park and her epic escape from North Korea" BBC Radio --"Lies cannot last forever"--North Korea defector on her home country Independent (UK) -- "When Silence is not an option" Yeonmi Park profiled by the Independent (UK) Yahoo News --"Escaping North Korea: one refugee's story" Al Jazeera --"A Life in Exile, escaping North Korea"  http://m.aljazeera.com/story/20141015154253291240 Al Jazeera  Facebook page --https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera/posts/10152867626258690 Radio Free Asia --"탈북자 박연미 씨, 유럽서 북 인권 고발" Lollipop --"Pretty law student becomes international celebrity after daring escape from North Korea" Huffington Post --"One Young World Conference That Established The First Rape Clinic In Somalia, Kicks Off In Dublin" One Young World --"Dublin welcomes young leaders from 194 countries to One Young World" Giir...

  We will soon be launching the Casey and Yeon Mi Show. Too much to say so I will say it a bit later, too many to thank, so I will thank them all later. Special thanks to  My co-host Yeon Mi Park for agreeing to join me, even though English is not her first language.  김정호 who suggested the idea of me hosting an online show and then didn't complain as I completely changed the format, focus and found a co-host he had never met. 정규재 for agreeing to allow us to host the show on his channel Producer Kim Hyung Jin for his guidance. We had been expecting that our producer would give us some tips. After we got settled he said, "Go!" in Korean. And thus our podcast started. I pretended not to notice that Yeonmi was with me, she asked, "Am I invisible? But as I told her: She would be internationally known one day, I just hoped that she would remember my name. And she has! I wrote about it here a month later:  The Casey Lartigue Show with YeonMi Park! (koreatimes.co.kr) Yes, Ye...