WEMAP: Meet MAP’s volunteers for the first half of 2024 🙂 Meet Koo Ha-rin, the volunteer who has joined “Dialogue with Refugees”🥰
Q1. Please give a brief introduction of yourself!
Hello, I am Koo Ha-rin, a first-year master’s student in sociology. Nice to meet you! I have become a volunteer for Dialogue with Refugees. You can call me by my baptismal name, Ia, if you like. 🙂
Q2. Please share why you applied to MAP 🙂
While studying Southeast Asian regional and urban sociology, I came to feel the appeal of listening to other people’s stories through qualitative research. I also wanted to experience the system and the inside of an NGO that carries out international development cooperation projects by working in one.
Q3.Please fill in the blank: “I want to be a ___ activist”
I want to be a creative volunteer. I will try to be a volunteer who connects individuals and communities with diversity, free from stereotypes, prejudice and hegemony based on race, religion, nationality, social status, political views and the like.
Q4. What do you think our society needs most right now to become a better society?
I think what we need most is attention. We need each person to think critically and pay attention to how events, whether trivial or vast, such as being able to get up in the morning, eat a meal or meet a friend, come to happen in our lives, in society, in human relationships and in the environment, and to what changes follow where when such events occur. I too only manage to make the effort when I consciously look around me every day and try to listen to voices.
Q5. What gives you small but certain happiness?
I think it is the people around me and self-confidence. When I realize that my precious family is beside me, friends who cheer each other on are behind me, and a heart that believes in myself is ahead of me, each day feels overwhelmingly full. It may not be small, but it is certain happiness!
Q6. When do you feel most like yourself?
When I write in a diary or write a letter, and when my mental or physical fatigue reaches its extreme. In these two situations, I think my unconscious nature comes out. I think Dialogue with Refugees is a team that has to think and reflect deeply before dealing with people and writing documents, so I look forward to being able to show my sincere care for refugees.
Q7. What is your hidden charm that people do not know about?
I think deeply and reflect a lot, more than I look like I do…! But I do not get hurt easily, so when something falls short, I always promise myself I will do better next time. People often told me my eyes are sharp and that I seemed scary at first, but I think I am a more considerate person than I look….
Q8. Sometimes I look cool even to myself, whether or not others notice. When was the coolest moment in your life?
There were a few moments when I achieved what I wanted, which had seemed nearly impossible, through sheer determination and effort. I felt very proud then and came to believe in myself.
Q9. Is there something you have never done but would like to try in order to discover yourself?
To be perfectly honest, becoming a mother.
Q10. What change do you want to bring about through your work at MAP?
I want to tell everyone, not only refugees but also activists, listeners and speakers, that “we all should live in a society where we can dream freely”.