Wishes of hope for children...

밴쿠버 조선 news@vanchosun.com 기자의 다른 기사보기

   

By Angela MacKenzie

수잔 리치씨가 북한에서 찍은 이 사진에 있는 6살난 김철민 어린이는 제대로 영양 공급을 받지 못해 영양실조에 걸려 있다.

I first met Susan Ritchie at an interactive seminar hosted by the Advisory Council on the Democratic and Peaceful Unification (ACDPU) of Korea in Vancouver.
When it was time for her presentation, Ritchie stood up with a microphone in her hand and told the room packed full of people her simple story of how she become involved with the children of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (North Korea).
Ritchie first travelled to the DPRK in 2000 as an interpreter for the Canadian government.
During her trip, she met a nursing mother of twins who was unable to provide enough nutrition for her babies.
It was an encounter that would change Ritchie’s life.
As mother herself, Ritchie returned to Canada and vowed to do something. So with the help of other volunteers, she founded First Steps, a humanitarian organization whose purpose is to provide essential nutrients to young children.
Ritchie’s ability to speak fluent Korean helped her to negotiate the first mission by First Steps to the North Korea in 2002. First Steps sent a container to a hospital and daycares in Kangdong County in 2002, providing pablum to 400 children. The organization has since grown to provide daily soymilk to more than 30,000 children.
According to First Steps, North Korea, with a population of about 23 million, has suffered acute food shortages for more than a decade. United Nations and World Food Programme reports (2003) show that between two and three million North Korean children (infants to age five) consistently fail to receive the nutrients vital to their physical and mental development. That has resulted in the emergence of almost an entire generation of children whose growth is stunted.
The organization’s current focus has shifted to supplying specially-designed Vita-Cow machines to food production centres in Nampo and Wonsan, port cities on the west and east coasts of North Korea. Operating like over-sized pressure cookers, the highly energy-efficient machines process soybeans into protein-rich soymilk. Each machine can produce enough soymilk daily to meet the growth requirements of more than 1,000 young children.
First Steps has since raised money to purchase and deliver eight Vita-Cows – four in Nampo and four in Wonsan. The organization has also purchased two shipping containers (18 tons each) of soybeans in China and had them delivered to Nampo and Wonsan.
Ritchie says First Steps’ teams regularly monitor their activities and work in close co-operation with other international aid groups as well as North Korean officials.
But First Steps needs funds to continue providing food to those thousands of children.
So to raise awareness and money, First Steps volunteers will be accepting wishes and prayers of hope that will be tied to a tree at the Korean Heritage Festival on June 17 in Coquitlam.
Two students from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design have volunteered to create a tree of hope for the First Steps booth at the festival.
Anyone will be able to drop by the booth to write a prayer or a hope for the children of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (North Korea) on a foot-shaped piece of paper to attach to the tree.
Ritchie also plans to raise funds to help feed the children in North Korea by selling more than 300 miniature trees.
“We will encourage those who purchase a tree to think of the children in NK as they watch their tree grow and to use it to remind themselves to say a prayer for the children of NK each time they give it water,” Ritchie said.

Trees may be purchased at the First Steps booth during the Korean Heritage Festival on Saturday, June 17, 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Percy Perry Stadium (formerly Town Centre Stadium), 1299 Pinetree Way, Coquitlam. For more information about First Steps, visit www.firststepscanada.org.

이제 신문도 이메일로 받아 보세요! 매일 업데이트 되는 뉴스와 정보, 그리고
한인 사회의 각종 소식들을 편리하게 받아 보실 수 있습니다. 지금 신청하세요.

광고문의: ad@vanchosun.com   기사제보: news@vanchosun.com   웹 문의: web@vanchosun.com