Sunday, January 24, 2010
Following my second resolution, getting more involved with my community, I spent hours on the Internet, looking up clubs and volunteer work I could participate in. I came up with several answers.
- Volunteering at animal shelters: this may eventually result in me becoming a cat foster parent, but to be perfectly honest, right now I am enjoying being responsible just for myself. Sasha and I ventured out to the Nabiya cat shelter south of Itaewon two weekends ago to volunteer and hang out with cats. The Shelter is a family-sized apartment building, filled with 50 cats which have been found and rescued by volunteers. The surprising majority of them are ginger cats, many of which are on the plumper side of things, perhaps because its a 24/7 dry food buffet. Even though 50 cats seemed a bit much for the size, no cats were shut in cages, but all had their own beds. Some cats were separated into separate rooms, either because they didn't get along with other individuals, or because they were sick/old. All of them were almost overwhelmingly happy to see us and talked and played with us the entire time we were there (close to three hours). The shelter seemed very well organized with dedicated volunteers, but I quickly realized I would not be able to become one of the regulars. It takes over an hour for me to get to, limiting volunteering to weekends, and then my weekends change dramatically week to week, so I can't make any firm commitments as the shelter needs. I do hope to volunteer at an animal shelter once a month throughout the year, we'll see how it goes.
- WOOF Korea: WOOF stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. This is an international organization, which started in the UK in the 1970s. It has grown enormously, especially in recent years, and now has offices in more than 28 countries which help volunteers setup farm stays with organic farms in their country of location. The center of this program is exchange: exchange of labor, culture, and knowledge for experience, food and board. I have been wanting to participate in this program for a long time, but have never been able to not spend my time earning money. Here in Korea the opportunity has finally arrived. I hope to make my first farm stay during my three day vacation of the Lunar New Year, so be looking for that post!
- Volunteering with PLUR: PLUR stands for Peace Love Unity Respect, which sounds quite hippy-ish, I know, but actually they do some very relevant things. It's a volunteer movement which exists here in Seoul. The participants are mostly foreigners who get involved in homeless outreach. PLUR has two main events Feed Your Seoul and Help Your Seoul...
Sunday nights Help Your Seoul: 15 volunteers meet at Seoul Station, and all chip in to buy some bread rolls and soy milk enough for a few hundred homeless people living inside and around the various subway stations. This event is organized in conjunction with a Korean NGO which operates there. One of the Korean counterparts takes 10 of the PLUR volunteers on a long walk to distribute food, which the other people stay behind and play some live music and distribute coffee and information about upcoming events.
I have participated in the Help Your Seoul the past two weekends. The first time I stayed behind to sing songs and hand out coffee. The goal is to have the homeless people makes submissions as to what songs they want to hear, and we will perform them. It was very cold, and since we we are in Korea after all, the songs were mostly Korean songs I didn't know, so I didn't feel very useful. Many homeless people did come through, accepted the coffee gratefully, and lingered for a while to enjoy the music. I can imagine it is quite refreshing to be engaged by strangers, as opposed to be ignored, as the average person tends to do when walking by a homeless person. There was a very sad and vocal fight however, which appeared to involve a homeless family. There was a little girl involved who looked to be about ten years old and stood there bawling while the man and woman fought loudly near us. After some time, volunteers from the Korean NGO came from outside their office and intervened.
Last week, I went with the larger group on the long walk around the area distributing food. Before leaving, we put on yellow volunteer coats, and are instructed how to behave. We are told how to say politely in Korean "please accept this" while holding the food out respectfully with two hands. We are asked to speak quietly as we near homeless people, as they are often sleeping and don't appreciate being disturbed. We are also asked to not leave food on the ground but rather on their blankets. If a person finds the bag of food on the ground they will most likely consider it dirty and discard it. It was explained that for most people this meager two buns of bread and soy milk would be their only meal of the day.
We walked for an hour and a half, making a wide circuit around our starting point at Seoul Station. Our guide from the Korean NGO walked briskly and spoke shortly in Korean with us, very business-like. He seemed to be on familiar terms with many of the people we fed. Many of the men were sleeping when we passed, and the guide would call out to them as we passed, waking them up for food. Each recipient seemed grateful for the food, sometimes thanking us in English. I was repeatedly amazed by the make-shift homes these men had made for themselves, and was surprised to learn that we were serving significantly reduced numbers: a good majority of individuals were staying in shelters during the cold winter months. One of the funnier moments, was giving food to a man, when opening the cardboard rooftop of his 'home' had two talkative cats curled up with him. He was full of smiles and the cats seemed quite at home.
Once the food is gone, we return back to headquarters, to rejoin the music group and debrief. Usually a group goes out for their own dinner at a nearby restaurant before parting ways. It's about a 40 minute subway ride for me back to my nice, warm, clean apartment, with an enormous pot of tomato cabbage soup on the stove. After an evening spent seeing people sleeping outside in cardboard boxes and accepting bread and milk for their only meal, I marvel at how rich I really am, and consider how lucky it is that I can make an income purely off speaking and writing my native language. This world can certainly be a curious place...
2 Comments:
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- cross1celt said...
February 3, 2010 at 11:05 AMWhat a wonderful thing to do! Have I told you lately how proud I am of you? :^)- Kristinrut said...
February 9, 2010 at 12:24 AMWhat great efforts! You have inspired me! :)
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