Q1. Please introduce yourself briefly!
Hello, I am Park Se-yun, a volunteer in the first half of 2023. I am glad to spend this spring and summer with MAP and the wonderful people in MAP. 🙂
Q2. Please tell us why you joined MAP and what you do.
While majoring in international studies at university, I came to pay attention to people who had to leave their homes and become refugees for various reasons, including war and other political instability and climate change, and to their lives after leaving their home countries. After I became interested in refugee issues, I continued to explore them, individually and through activities with various organisations, but at some point I began to want to go beyond exploration: to meet refugees in person, to listen directly to their stories, and to help, even a little, with their stable settlement in Korean society.
While feeling this thirst, I remembered MAP, which I had come to know through taking part in the 2020 event “Human Library: A ‘Refugee’ Lives Next Door.” I became convinced that volunteering at MAP would let me come one step closer to refugees in our society, learn more about refugee issues and quench the thirst I had felt, so I applied for the first-half volunteer recruitment, and I am thankful that I was able to join.
At MAP, I support the operation of the “Good Samaritan Scholarship” programme. The “Good Samaritan Scholarship” is a programme that aims to help young refugees realise their visions by providing the scholarship funds deposited by “Good Samaritan House,” a refugee shelter in Uijeongbu, to young refugees who need support for Korean language education, vocational education and higher education. I am in charge of case management for the three newly selected scholarship recipients of the first half, discuss scholarship use plans with them every week, and help with support for the various education programmes they need and with the registration procedures. Of course, in the course of the work there are times when I face the high walls that still exist against refugees in our society and find it difficult, but I am glad that I can walk together with the scholarship recipients on their path toward their dreams, overcoming those difficulties one by one.
Q4. What do you think our society needs most now in order to become a better society?
Through my activities, I came to feel that in our society “human” rights still tend to be protected only inside the boundary of the concept of “citizen” rights. In other words, rather than anyone, as a human being, universally enjoying rights, I felt that one has to meet the qualification of being a “citizen” of a particular state in order to fully enjoy rights, and this felt somewhat frustrating. I hope we move toward a society in which everyone’s rights are respected on the basis of dignity, not qualification, and I think an institutional foundation and a social atmosphere for this are needed.
Q5. What gives you small but certain happiness?
Reading a book at night with only a lamp on, listening to my favourite music through headphones; having a nice meal and talking with people I care about; walking in a place with many trees, such as a park. These times give me small but certain, very precious happiness!
Q10. Finally, what “change” do you want to bring about through your work at MAP?
Since I am in charge of supporting the operation of the Good Samaritan Scholarship, I want to contribute, even a little, while I work at MAP, to building a society where refugees can freely pursue self-realisation and move toward their dreams.
