The forum participants at the poster exhibition

On May 20th, 2010, Hanns-Seidel-Foundation Korea and PSCORE (People for Successful COREan unification) in collaboration with university students groups hosted a forum on the topic of the “Social integration of defectors and North Korean defector’s roles for the unification process”. This forum was mostly financed by Education centre for unification. As an additional event the poster exhibition on 20 years of German unification showing the German unification process was held beside the forum venue. 20 posters, made by Stiftung Aufarbeitung (government-funded organization devoted to the examination and reappraisal of the Communist dictatorship in East Germany) and supported by the German federal ministry of foreign affairs, were provided through the German embassy in Korea.

In the first session the participants, mostly consisted of university students had an opportunity to learn on the social integration for defectors. Dr. Bernhard Seliger, the representative of Hanns-Seidel-Foundation Korea gave a lecture on the expatriation from East Germany and the resettlement in West Germany. In the following lecture given by Kim, Young-Soo, project manager of HSS Korea the lessons from German unification for the social integration was dealt with. During the Q&A time various questions on German case were asked by the floor.

The Second session was organised by students’ presentations. Nam, Gwang-myeong and Hwang Cheol from “Waedae NK”, the group for students from North Korea of Hanguk University of foreign studies focused on the situation of North Korean defectors including the university students. The next presentation was presented by Jin Young-ju from AISEC of Seoul women’s university. She emphasized importance of the psychological integration mentioning the difficulty of North Korean defectors’ resettlement in South Korea. Kim Sin-gu from “Unification practice” of Kookmin University talked about the North Korean defectors’ efforts for the settlement in South Korea and what kind of roles they can have in the future unification process. The last presentation was made by Han Kyeong-min from Joongang University based on his opinions on the future roles of North Korean defectors after the Korean unification. The session concluded with discussions and Q&A between the students in the floor and the front.

Hanns-Seidel-Foundation Korea and PSCORE have been working on various events regarding the defectors and unification issues. The English camp annually organised by PSCORE and supported by HSS Korea is supposed to be hosted from June 25th to 27th.

More information on the symposium-Arirang TV Now in North Korea :
http://www.arirang.co.kr/Tv2/TVCommon_NoStaff_Archive.asp?PROG_CODE=TVCR0506&MENU_CODE=101044&view_seq=2901&Page=1&sys_lang=Eng

Article in Unifcation Newspaper 24.05.2010

Forum participants and Dr. Seliger giving an answer for studnets' questions

Student presenters