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Happy New Year, Wishing you a New Year filled with
New Hope and Joy! This article is from the first issue of our soon-to-come Webzine
There is one simple truth, a truth which reads that we do not live alone in
this wide world and should all live harmoniously with each other. When you
choose to think only about yourself and not others, a society full of people
who are neglected and marginalized will eventually catch up with you.
Amidst all the complicated interests and concerns
that developed nations share about immigration and refugee policies, we have
seen that it is volunteer workers who become the first ones to genuinely
receive and care for foreign immigrants and refugees. Volunteer workers help
immigrants and refugees to learn their country’s language, go to school, find
jobs, and adapt to this new and unfamiliar environment so that immigrants and
refugees are able to establish themselves as community members (and not
outsiders). This way, foreign incomers can participate in the society as active
citizens and contribute to local community systems.
During this process, volunteer workers discover that
foreign immigrants and refugees, people they thought were alien and different, are
actually not very much different at all and experience a kind of familial
connection and love. In such manner, volunteer workers are doing an invaluable
work of building “trust” between people,
which is our society’s most important safety network.
We Rainbow Dream members think that we have been
doing this kind of work, a work most timely in that Korea is continually and
increasingly becoming a more and more multicultural society. Our efforts have
been sincere and earnest. And we are serious about our work. Rainbow Dream is
not a short-term organization and is rather organized as a long-term project. Rainbow
Dream tries to understand the specific hardships of foreign incomers. We do not
offer abstract advice or assistance, but endeavor to offer practical help. In
addition, our Rainbow Dream members and volunteers do not think of their
relationship with multicultural families as simply the helper and helped, but
rather understand it as a mutual interaction where both sides experience
positive change.
One aspect we would like to emphasize is that we have a clear philosophical
approach and methodology to our programs. Our approach involves the notion that
artistic and cultural activities can help to heal minds and enrich people’s lives. Children
from multicultural families can grow as healthy society members through the help
of artistic and cultural therapy. And we sincerely believe that everyone has
something to share. When multicultural children and their families give us big
smiles as an expression of appreciation, we feel that this is the way towards a
healthy relationship between people, a relationship where each and every person
looks out and care for each other when help is needed.
We are aware that, at times, good will can unintentionally hurt people’s self
esteem or self-respect. We believe that help offered by Rainbow Dream is of a
different character. Rainbow Dream has adopted Martin Luther King’s spirit of ‘joining hands as sisters and
brothers,’ an alternative method to the imposition of
policies and one-sided help. Rainbow Dream hopes for its teachers, volunteers,
multicultural children and families to become one large harmonious community. And
we are aware that the hard work and service of volunteer workers is everything
in order to build such a community. But an evident fact and truth is that our
volunteer workers are the leading actors in the construction of this safety
network of our society. Rainbow Dream pays its respects to all volunteer
workers, supporters, sponsors, and everyone who helped along the way of its
journey.
Park Yun-ae (board member of Rainbow Dream, representative
of volunteer group ‘e-um’, International
Association for Volunteer Effort Asia-Pacific representative)
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