Q1. Please give a brief self-introduction and tell us why you applied to MAP.
Hello! I am Lee Ju-hui, and I have been working on the Korean Language Education Team since the second half of 2024. While meeting refugee-background learners in class, I felt that existing Korean language education does not sufficiently reflect the reality of refugees. Many learners found it difficult to take part in regular education, and that gap showed up immediately in the field. To find answers to the questions “Why are they placed in a situation where it is hard to learn Korean? What should Korean language education for refugees look like?”, I felt I needed the experience of meeting, learning, and sharing directly in the field of refugee support. For this reason, I applied to MAP.
Q2. What exactly do you do on your current team?
Through the “Korean Language Psychosocial Support Project,” I currently meet refugees one-on-one. Although it takes the form of a Korean class, in practice it is also a process in which they come out of their homes at a set time, meet people, exchange greetings naturally with the staff at the MAP office, and feel welcomed. Using Korean as the medium, we talk with each other and build up time in which they put their own experiences into words. I teach Korean while staying by their side so that this time can continue naturally.
Q3. What has been the most memorable moment for you so far in your activities?
All the moments I experience in the one-on-one Korean classes are memorable. In particular, when psychological support is needed, learning is much slower, but the change feels that much clearer. Something I would explain once, I repeat more than ten times, using various methods such as visual materials, audio, gestures, and apps. Outside of class, too, we keep in regular contact and build a rhythm together. Then at some point, the learner starts sending homework every day, and even records their voice and sends it to practice pronunciation. Seeing this, I experience the small actions I offer coming back to me as the other person’s response. These days, it feels meaningful to be with them, moment by moment, as they gradually open their hearts and become able to learn again.
Q4. What do you think our society needs most in order to live together with refugees?
I think the first thing needed is “knowing that they exist.” When I talk about volunteering, I still often hear the question, “Are there refugees in Korea?” Without the fact that they are members who live together with us being known, it is hard to begin any discussion. Therefore, refugees should be made more visible in everyday life, and there should be more opportunities to encounter them naturally as people living diverse lives. I think only when these many processes build up can refugees be accepted not as someone special but as one of the neighbors we live with.
Q5. What “change” have you felt while volunteering at MAP? Or what “change” do you want to make?
It is that I get to see refugees change as they visit this space again and again and take part in various activities. When they first come, they look tense and serious, but after coming two or three times and joining in several activities, I see them smiling more. Perhaps that was how they were originally, and it was a side of them I had simply not seen. I also feel that I am growing into someone who, when trying to understand refugees, sees not only the one-dimensional label of “refugee” but also the many sides and stories that a person has. I hope that through MAP’s work, more people in the future will see refugees not within a single frame but as individuals who each have their own life and story.
Q6. How should MAP approach people who find the refugee issue difficult?
I think it is about making more people aware of the very fact that refugees live in Korea. I think projects that MAP is running now, such as the “Dialogue with Refugees” project and the “Mind Run (마인드런)” held in November, are extremely meaningful. People meet refugees directly, hear their stories, run together, and spend time together. It seems important that such points of contact continue to be created.
