Empower House Refugee Participant Interview IX

I am a student currently living in Empower House.

I left North Korea last year in January. During the journey, I learned from fellow North Korean defectors that we could go to a third advanced country besides South Korea. With this knowledge and hope, I chose America and applied for refugee status. I arrived in the States last year in December.

I had not even left my own hometown while I was living in North Korea. Therefore, it was with great hope and dreams that I came to America. However, what awaited me as someone who had lived in a country that is so far behind in times were insurmountable language and cultural barriers.

For this reason, I began connecting with ENoK, a group I had heard of while I staying in the refugee camp in Thailand that provided language and acculturation services to North Koreans. And finally, I came to Empower House, and right now I am studying under an ideal environment so that I can make the next leap in this new society.

I feel incredibly grateful for the way God has prepared and guided all the paths for me till I finally came here to study. And of course, I am so grateful for all the people who are volunteering their time and resources at Empower House.

Right now, my priority is English, and I would like to spend my time here learning about and weighing different opportunities available in this new country.

Thank you very much, and I will do my best.

THANK YOU!