Volunteering

A day at the HyangJin Orphanage.
 Incheon, Korea.

"While we try to teach children all about life,

children teach us what life is all about."

~Angela Schwindt

This weekend I stepped out of my comfort zone (as if by being here I was not already out of there) AND I signed up to Volunteer with the Korean Kids & Orphanages Outreach mission. Without knowing anyone, or knowing anything about the area I was going, I got up at 7:30am and took a train for over an hour to finally arrive at the HyangJin Orphanage. Thankfully after a few confused looks and wandering around the station, I met the other volunteers (who thankfully were either from English speaking countries or spoke English!) As always, really genuine and easy going people; I hope to keep in contact with them.

We arrived at the Orphanage and after just a few minutes of welcoming and preparation, the 40+ kids entered the room. The day consisted of educational English lessons as well as recreational activities. We were also asked to donate a few wons ($) to cover their snacks for the day. To me, it felt as if it was just another day at work with my students. They understood far less English than my students, but at least I was paired up with a bilingual Korean volunteer, so I had a translator when needed. I was in charge of the cutest 3 kids in the room. It was a fun lesson followed by a competition of paper airplanes and origami lessons (to me, not from me haha)

I was surprised to find out the high percentage of children who live in orphanages, but not necessarily meaning that they are orphans.I learned that maybe 40% of the children living there do in fact have parents (some may even know who their parents are) yet due to societal pressures, some parents chose to give up the rights to their children and place them in orphanages. From my conversation with the volunteer coordinator, it turns out that it is a common case that single,unwed mothers, often place their children in orphanages in order to not be burdened with judgement from society. In addition, up until recent years, the culture rejects this so strongly, that there has been minimal support from the government for young mothers. It was hard to take it all in, but I can't imagine what would be worse: Being a child with no parents, or knowingly having parents that did not want you.
Besides that factor, I do have to say that the government does give tremendous amount of support to Orphanages. These facilities were in beautiful and modern conditions. It's more like a business to run because you can actually get paid very well by owning or working at an Orphanage. Good!!
In conclusion, I am definitely going again in 2 weeks and hopefully get more involved with the group and future service projects. Civic engagement is truly my hobby.

Love,