Peace Corps Official hopes to send the Peace Corps to North Korea
Read and comment on this story from the Korea Times on Dr. Kyo "Paul’’ Jhin, renowned Korean-American politician and volunteer activist and Director of the office of planning, policy and analysis at the U.S. Peace Corps who said that hopefully we could dispatch our Peace Corps volunteers to North Korea someday.
"Dispatching the Peace Corps volunteers to North Korea is not easy because, by regulation, we can send our people only when there is an official request from a host country. To do that, the normalization of the diplomatic relations between the U.S. and North Korea has to precede this,’’ Jhin said in an interview with The Korea Times.
* This link was active on the date it was posted. PCOL is not responsible for broken links which may have changed.
Peace Corps Director Seeks Way to Help North Korea
By Lee Yong-sung
Staff Reporter
A renowned Korean-American politician and volunteer activist expressed the desire to send the Peace Corps to North Korea at a recent conference in which the organization participated.
``Hopefully we could dispatch our Peace Corps volunteers to North Korea someday.’’ Dr. Kyo ``Paul’’ Jhin, 67, director of the office of planning, policy and analysis at the U.S. national volunteer organization, said during the 17th World Conference of the International Association for Volunteer Effort (IAVE) at Lotte Hotel in downtown Seoul. The conference closed yesterday.
Founded by former U.S. president Robert Kennedy in 1961, the organization has been steadily helped needy people throughout the world, fighting against poverty, illness and illiteracy until now.
``Dispatching the Peace Corps volunteers to North Korea is not easy because, by regulation, we can send our people only when there is an official request from a host country. To do that, the normalization of the diplomatic relations between the U.S. and North Korea has to precede this,’’ Jhin said in an interview with The Korea Times.
The four-day IAVE conference attracted more than 1,200 volunteers from 83 countries to Seoul.
Beginning with a welcoming speech from President Kim Dae-jung, the event was to persuade more people to be volunteers. The conference included lectures, workshops and study visit programs. A youth forum was also held as part of the main conference, drawing about 100 young people from 45 countries.
Speakers from such areas of conflict as Bosnia, East Timor, Afghanistan and Lebanon made speeches during the plenary sessions, which were divided into the topics ``Volunteer Work for Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation,’’ ``Volunteer World for Empowerment of Human Dignity,’’ ``Government Policy and Undertaking to Promote and Support Volunteering’’ and ``Youth Volunteering.’’
East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao gave a keynote address about the power of international volunteers in the course of his country’s independent movement.
The next conference will be held in Barcelona in 2004.
danlee@koreatimes.co.kr
Click on a link below for more stories on PCOL
Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; Peace Corps - Washington; Peace Corps Overseas Programs; COS - Korea
