Category Archives: Donation
Unexpected Gifts of Love for Foster Children
Early Christmas Gifts from US Warm LFNKR Members’ Hearts, Too
On July 3, a package filled with knitted goods arrived at the LFNKR office in Tokyo. They were sent by a lady in the US, who knitted them all herself.
She wrote that as she knitted, she pictured the finished gloves, mufflers and caps warming the North Korean foster children who are in LFNKR’s education sponsorship program.
Financial Crunch Also Hits LFNKR
Feeling the Financial Crisis
Falling donations are slashing LFNKR’s rescue activities. This means disaster for many of the North Korean refugees now waiting for help. In fact, we can do less and less for them as our operating funds shrink. It’s a fact that most NGOs in Japan now face financial crisis. LFNKR is, unfortunately, no exception. Some large-scale organizations command huge financial support from religious or political sources. We do not.
Letters from NK Refugee Kids in Hidden Shelters
June 2008
LFNKR recently received letters from several of our foster children who are currently in first to third grades of elementary school. These children are being supported under LFNKR’s education sponsorship program. In their letters to their foster parents, the children mainly report on their school records.
Escapee from North Korea Sold as Slave to a Sex Chat Site
First, Banished to the Middle of Nowhere for Watching a South Korean Movie
Hwang Miryon, 19
Former Chongjin University student
(Name changed to protect her safety)
My family was relatively well-off even in Chongjin, but in August 2005 we were suddenly struck by misfortune, something we could never have imagined. It all started when a family with whom we were friends was arrested on charges of watching a foreign film. An acquaintance of the wife was arrested by the “109 Brigade” and before we knew it they had come for us as well.
Save North Korean Refugee Flooding Victims
Further Famine Expected
News media worldwide are reporting on the recent flooding in North Korea and the widespread damage it has caused. Effects from the flood have begun to seriously impact the area in China bordering North Korea, where many of LFNKR’s rescue activities are based.
LFNKR Expands its NK Food Supply Network
Made Possible by 300,000 Yen in Donations
The operation to distribute emergency supplies in Hamgyong-bukto, North Korea was a success. Through one of our clandestine local networks, we were able to provide extremely needy people with a total of one ton of rice, as well as clothing and antibiotics. The value of all items supplied equaled 300,000 yen (about US$2,500). The extra supplies were financed by recent donations. Late November of last year, five members of LFNKR’s local group JYO entered Hoeryong-si, North Korea from China, carrying several boxes filled with winter clothing, antibiotics and penicillin.
Summer Clothes Are Survival Gear
The Right Clothes Make a Person Invisible
For North Korean refugees hiding in China, the wrong clothes can mean arrest, repatriation and hard prison time. That is why their aim is to blend in, look like the Chinese locals, and escape notice. When warmer weather comes, if they are seen still wearing winter clothing, the Chinese police notice it immediately. Being noticed by the police automatically means arrest for them, followed quickly by forcible return to North Korea where harsh punishment awaits them.
Ebook – NK Prison Camp Eye Witness Accounts
Interviews with Survivors, Former Guards
The world was shocked on February first 2004, when BBC ran an hour-long feature clearly documenting North Korea’s biological experimentation on political prisoners in the highly secretive camps. Such stories are not new, however.
For more than ten years, a group of human rights activists have been working with newly-defected North Koreans, interviewing and collecting stories. Stories that “normal people” in the civilized world could scarcely believe.