I got involved into volunteer groups through my friend Bona. Bona is an NGO worker working for the Asian Center in the Philippines. When I went back to Philippines last 2005 and dropped by her place, she introduced me to Jerry who was also from Busan and working for Pusan Women's Hotline. It was such a short chat but I never knew that from then, I'll be bound to have this wonderful friendship with her and the organization.
Our group do cultural awareness programs for primary schools in Busan. We call the program "Marbling Story" because just like the art, the different colors blend beautifully to the others but the original colors remain or at least the streaks are still noticeable. In the same view, We hope that muliti-cultural families would be able to live by the Korean way but at the same time keeping their country's culture with them.
Our group meets every Tuesday morning from 10 to 12. For the first few meetings, we just talked much about each other's culture. How is it different from Korea's, problems encountered while staying in the Busan and our personal hopes for the future.

The program's idea is to do something small that would do something BIG for tomorrow. So we chose elementary students to be the subject of the program since we can't do much more for the grown up ones (some stubborn people who refuse to change their minds).
It's been 6 months since we started the program and we visited two schools so far... the third one will be next week. We had published a book and believe me, the work is too time consuming considering that all of us have jobs.
Nevertheless, I believe that the effects of the program are worth the trouble. Maybe five to ten years from now, by the time our children goes to school... I just hope we made a difference.


Comments
I'm Raquel Nam.I am currently looking for a Filipina who can take a part-time teaching job in the evening.
Details:
YUHAK TIMES, Busan Branch
Evening class(group)
Total of 16 hours per month
Salary: 500,000 KRW p/month
Applicants should contact me for
a phone interview.
Email: raqs21@hotmail.com
If you know some 'kababayans' who might be interested, please pass this on.
Thank you so much.