By Joanna Hosaniak | Project Leader
As the year comes to an end, we would like to take a look at what we have achieved together with you, our generous donors throughout 2017.
We have helped 170 North Korean children and youth this year. At the beginning of the year, we held our regular Hangyureh School for 27 North Korean middle and high school students, focusing on alleviating their academic difficulties, fostering creativity, enhancing logic and increasing their awareness of their rights and freedoms.
Our one-on-one Mentorship Lessons, as well as the Career Mentoring Program has helped 20 students. One of the major goals of these programs is to help North Korea youth overcome difficulties in South Korean schools and pursue meaningful and successful careers now that they are members of a modern and free society. We also work to prepare them to get into the universities of their choice, which we successfully accomplished this year, helping four students pass their entrance exams and be admitted to top universities in South Korea. In addition, we provided 13 scholarships to both promising North Korean students as well as students who are in difficult positions to help them continue with their studies.
Our Leadership Program, which currently gathers 25 top North Korean students attending colleges and universities in South Korea, held their monthly meetings as well as training on transitional justice in Poland for three weeks during the summer. A graduate of this program, Yeon, also got her first job in one of the biggest South Korean commercial banks!
Every Saturday since 1999, our Education Team and passionate volunteers assist at Hanawon - the government resettlement institute - to help newly arrived North Koreans smoothly transition to reality in South Korean society. They held classes in Maths and English as well as adjustment programs for 84 students aged between 6-18 years old.
We did not forget about the sports, either! Our passionate L4 Soccer Team, consisting of 12 North Korean and 3 South Korean soccer players, met every week for training and took part in two South Korean soccer tournaments.
Finally, we are very proud to announce that one of our former students and now consultant of our organization, Sungju, who was a child begging for food back in the streets of North Korea, got his Fulbright Scholarship and will begin his Ph.D. program in the U.S. in the Fall of 2018!
Through GlobalGiving, between January 2017 and present, our education programs received a total of U$ 2,261 in donations. While we are already gearing up for the next Hangyureh School which begins on January 2, 2018 - we finish this year with conviction that together we have made a positive impact in the lives of many youth and we look forward to seeing a new generation of North Korean students grow into strong and successful young individuals.
Thanking you for your support, all of us at the Citizens’ Alliance would like to wish you wonderful holidays and a very happy New Year!
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