DUKEENGAGE SOUTH KOREA: AN EXPERIMENT IN SUSTAINABILITY
An Interview with Program Leader Nayoung Aimee Kwon

By Pramodh Ganapathy 

Add this to the list of cool opportunities Duke students now have access to: helping North Korea refugees assimilate into South Korean society. Pramodh Ganapathy talks to Professor Nayoung Aimee Kwon - who sits on the Duke East Asia Nexus' Board of Advisors - about one of the newest international DukeEngage programs that works with escapees of the good 'ole DPRK that was launched this year. 
Going down the list of international DukeEngage programs, DukeEngage South Korea (DESK) stands out as one of only two newbies this year. Yet despite its relative immaturity, it attempts to tackle perhaps one of the most geopolitically relevant issues today: the “threat” of North Korea and its relationship with its neighbor to the south. DESK will primarily be involved in assisting North Korean refugees as they attempt to assimilate into South Korean society. However, as the program’s leader Dr. Nayoung Aimee Kwon reveals, the process of the program’s creation has hinted towards even larger implications than an 8-week service trip. Together with the “Professors Kim”—Dr. Hwansoo Kim, Dr. Cheehyung Kim, and Dr. Eunyoung Kim—Dr. Kwon envisions DESK as a unique combination of educational exchange, service, and sustainable engagement.      

Getting the Ball Rolling

According to Dr. Kwon, DESK developed organically from a strong interest base in North Korea at Duke, including a well-received course about North Korea taught by Dr. Hwansoo Kim and related student projects. The final cog in the wheel was the arrival of Dr. Cheehyung Kim, a specialist in North Korean studies. Planning began about a year prior to the proposal and solidified around the time Jeongho Kim and Cheoljun Yang, two college-age North Korean refugees, came to speak at Duke in February 2013. While the university was looking to shift DukeEngage more toward domestic programs, they were still open to a couple of new international proposals, and DESK was picked up.

Despite the strong interest base acting as a push for the program, Dr. Kwon notes that DESK was from the very beginning intended to be a program that was not particular about students’ background in Korean studies or proficiency with Korean as a language. Instead, the program was designed to open up the conversation about North Korea to people who may not already have a strong interest or background and forge connections where there may not have been any before. The DESK program coordinators were thus excited to receive 50 very diverse applications, an impressive number for a program in its first year. 

Mutual Learning and Educational Exchange

While a learning curve is an inherent part of virtually all DukeEngage programs, DESK is perhaps one of the first to place such a heavy emphasis on the educational aspect of the program. Enrollment in the program includes a mandatory independent study the semester prior in which different facets of the highly polarized North Korean refugee issue are studied and discussed. While this sort of rigorous study is not typical for DukeEngage programs, Dr. Kwon emphasizes that the program is intended for students of all backgrounds, and given that it deals with such a sensitive topic, an independent study seemed like a good fit. The educational focus of the program will extend into the summer and into the field, as DESK students will also spend time at the Institute for Unification Education, a branch of the Ministry of Unification of the South Korean government, as well as various other governmental and non-governmental organizations. 

Dr. Kwon notes that the primary aim of the heavy educational emphasis is to establish sustainability for the program. Rather than participating in an open-and-shut 8-week cultural excursion, students will hopefully continue to pursue the topic through research projects and/or courses based on their experiences. Part of this sustainability includes a blog, which Dr. Kwon hopes will be maintained through subsequent years of DESK.

Service

The central district of Seoul is historically a factory district and offers employment to a large number of North Korean refugees. However, these refugees often lack the resources for childcare. Enter the Kumkang School for North Korean Settlers, a boarding school for children of a large age range given the difficulties in matriculating into the South Korean school system. DESK students will volunteer at the school by supporting existing classes as well as teaching their own classes, which will be developed through the independent study this semester.

However, volunteering at the school comes with several concerns, especially given that the students come from “untraditional” backgrounds in terms of family structure, migrant histories, etc.; the principal of the school herself made it clear that there were to be no questions asked to students about their family backgrounds or their pasts. Given the highly emotional circumstances surrounding the students, DESK is in the process of providing resources to its participants, including contact with CAPS and a Durham-based religious organization that reaches out to local refugee communities. 

Bumps in the Road

Dr. Kwon remarks that she was still a “novice” when she started, so the construction of the program has come with a steep learning curve. She comments on the humbling nature of the experience—with the (often problematic) premise of the first world going to help the third world, so to speak, one tends to assume that people will be waiting for you with open arms. However, these organizations have their own ecosystems, and 8 students from Duke “descending” upon them, consuming time and resources for training, and then leaving after a very short period of time can cause a lot of disturbances. 

While Dr. Kwon has her own misgivings about the premise associated with DukeEngage, she notes positively that these dynamics cannot be undone and are an opportunity for both program leaders and students to be very reflective about the process and think critically about their positions. Additionally, the more specific issue of North Korean refugees is so politicized and polarized; even humanitarian groups have their own agendas and political perspectives. However, rather than keeping guarded and having maintaining a specific stance on the issue, Dr. Kwon personally thought it would be far more rewarding to offer students the opportunity to open themselves up to the conversation. Dr. Kwon admits that it is possible that DESK will cause more problems than solutions, but the idea of engagement is still promising. A door can be opened for conversation so that there can be sustainability for the program, perhaps not in terms of a specific cohort or organization, but rather in terms of the educational value that can be taken away from the program.

Overall, as Dr. Kwon reflects upon her experience with the program, she notes that it has been a very eye-opening experience for her, and she has been overwhelmed by the amount of interest expressed by both students and the community. The topics tackled by DESK are huge geopolitical conversations, so how this small group of 8 students can have an impact on a local level which can ultimately work up to a grand scale is very interesting to think about. As Dr. Kwon says of herself and the other architects of DESK, “we can imagine things taking their own course and becoming even bigger than what we had ever imagined. It’s exciting.”

Pramodh Ganapathy graduated from Duke University in 2014.