WEMAP: Meet MAP’s volunteers for the first half of 2024 🙂 Meet Jang Ju-eun, the volunteer who has joined the “Capacity-Building Program for Refugee Youth and Young Adults”🥰
Q1. Please give a brief introduction of yourself!
Hello! I am Jang Ju-eun, a MAP volunteer. The project I am in charge of this time is supporting the scholarship program for refugee youth and young adults. Specifically, I help select scholarship recipients, research and provide the information they need to prepare for their studies and careers, and keep in regular communication with the scholarship students.
Since I was young, I have had a vague dream of contributing to children in developing countries living a humane life. That is because I still cannot forget the eyes of the children living in a village built on a garbage dump called Smokey Mountain in the Philippines, which I visited during the winter break of my second year of middle school. Later, in high school, I became interested in poverty, refugees and education through Model United Nations, and I went on to study geography because I wanted to understand comprehensively the migration contexts and settlement processes of refugees. I am now a master’s student in geography, researching the relocation and settlement of schools for North Korean defectors!
Q2. Please share why you applied to MAP 🙂
I applied because the scholarship program for refugee youth and young adults run by MAP is a practical activity that fully combines “migrants” and “education”, the two things most important in my life.
“Migrants” matter in my life because, following my parents who run an NGO, I often met Nepali migrant workers and their families, and I keenly felt that the social and institutional conditions for migrants to live a humane life are still lacking. I also think “education” is an important ladder for young people with a migrant background to settle in a new society, so I applied because I thought this activity is meaningful work that the world truly needs.
Q3.What gives you small but certain happiness?
What gives me small but certain happiness is sharing stories with the people I love in which we sincerely think of one another. That warmth heats me up and seems to make it possible for me to go on living in the world again. I am also happy when I soak in hot water and sink into various thoughts. And I am truly happy lying with my feet rubbing against a fluffy, freshly washed blanket!
Q4. What change do you want to bring about through your work at MAP?
Through my work at MAP, I hope the radius of the hearts with which we human beings understand one another grows wider. For that, an attitude of respecting the other person, as we talk and get to know each other out of affection, will be essential! It is impossible to understand someone completely, but if we keep trying to understand one another, will tomorrow not be better than yesterday?