Help North Korean Refugee Mothers!

Donate to help North Korean refugee mothers achieve their goals and learn English! Right now, there are more than 30,000 North Korean refugees in South Korea who escaped from North Korea by trekking through China and then Southeast Asia. When North Koreans refugees finally arrive in South Korea, they are often at a loss at how to compete in South Korea's competitive job market and world of higher education. Speaking English has become a necessity in the South Korean workforce and academics; average North Koreans do not learn English in school, and English is blocked out of the North Korean dialect as much as possible. Because of this, many North Koreans newly living in South Korea find it difficult to achieve their personal, career, or academic goals without English. Teach North Korean Refugees (TNKR) works to provide English instruction to refugees and assist them to reach their goals in South Korea. However, this is not possible without the help of donations from those willing to give and help these refugees. Please consider donating to this cause and helping North Korean refugee mothers learn English!

(Donations can be accepted, although this project is now on hold. It received an A-rating from Seoul City Hall, but the response from refugees wasn't strong enough for us to seek a second grant).

According to South Korea's Ministry of Unification, more than 31,000 North Korean refugees have escaped to South Korea since the late 1990s. Overall, 71 percent of them are females, and the trend is even higher. In 2017, about 83 percent of them who arrived in South Korea are females. As has been reported by various reporters and organizations, many of them were victims of sex trafficking or sold as wives in China as they were escaping to freedom.

In addition to the challenges they have as immigrants to a new country and as women settling in a new male-dominated society, those who are mothers have children they brought from North Korea or China, or had after arriving in South Korea. Like mothers everywhere, they focus on their children, making them the priority rather than developing themselves.

For a few years now, TNKR has been considering ways to help North Korean refugee mothers who would sometimes drop out of our program because of childcare issues.

We recently received a grant for our proposal to set up a project offering Skype tutoring for North Korean refugee mothers who cannot easily commute for face-to-face tutoring in English. The grant is good for three months, we would like to raise more funding for this project to keep it going in the future and to also provide some support for TNKR to administer this project (all of the grant money is going directly to the program, meaning the program cannot continue beyond the current three-month allocation).

If we can keep this project going, we would like to expand it so that the project can also support occasional face-to-face tutoring sessions by tutors who can visit refugees near their homes. We have other additions in mind that could continue providing support for North Korean refugee mothers adjusting to living in South Korea while also raising their children.