reflecting on the trip

Our last day was an intense flurry of last meetings, back to back. We met with an artist who has created a beautiful piece regarding birth moms who relinquished their children, and a social work student who wants to study about the impact of social work counseling on unwed moms decisions to raise their children or not, and Dr. Boas had a final interview, did some work on our web site... and on. Then we ran for the bus to the airport and flew home.

Now, home and over jet lag we are reflecting on our trip. For all of us one of the main highlights was the meeting organized by unwed moms themselves. They are able to use the Seoul City Hanbumo Center to meet and discuss issues such as what kind of government support they may be eligible for and how to find jobs and the like. Eventually they plan to advocate directly for their needs. The energy in the room, as already written of in an earlier blog, was fantastic.

Another highlight was visiting the Me You Us center created by Aeranwon. Also mentioned in a previous blog, the number of women they are serving, with a very diverse range of services, after just 6 months of operation, is impressive.

Both of these stand out as they reflect two important changes. One is the readiness of unwed moms to become visible, to speak up for themselves. The other is the move of services to support moms while they live in communities. As there are so few places in group homes, most moms of necissity and probably to some degree choice, live with their parents, with friends, or in their own apartments. Community based, rather then shelter based, programs are essential for them.

Second to last day in Seoul, more meetings

Such a surprise, more meetings!

The highlights of today were visiting the Ae Ran Wan "Me You Us" center and the National Human Rights Commission of Korea.

With support from KUMSN ARW started the first ( as far as we know) comprehensive, community based support center for unwed moms. (The government has since started several more affiliated with their family net program). In their first 6 months of operation they provided crisis counseling, small financial help to moms for medical care, job related expenses, housing and baby related expenses, parenting classes, helped moms finish school, learn how to search for jobs and then actually support them in the job search process, ongoing counseling, medical care, and organized and supported self help groups, all for the moms. In addition they shared training with a number of other organizations and have built a network they can refer moms to for various services. We were awed by how much they do, and how far they stretch their limited financial resources.

We asked Ms. Han, the warm and caring Director, what has been the most surprising thing so far, since opening the center. She said that it turns out they are in a great neighborhood, easily accessible to the moms, so that many moms have attended their programs or just dropped by they center. They have seen a quick increase in the amount of outreach and counseling they do and an increase in the parents attending parenting classes. When asked what is most challenging, she said that the social workers are overwhelmed and it is hard for them to work with so many people. Also, their space is too small for many of the programs they run, so they have to find other places to use.

Over all, we are just so impressed with the work the Me You Us center is doing for the moms.

The next stop was at the National Human Rights Commission. There we learned how the Commission works and the kinds of issues they address. They are concerned about discrimination and violation of human rights related to 20 areas of focus. Just a few are gender, race, religion, marital status, disability, mental health and age. They investiage individual cases and try to help the involved parties come to an agreement that respects human rights and Korean laws. They can make recommendations, review pending legistaion and initiate investigations. They do not have any enforcement powers however. We had a fruitful conversation about the rights of mothers to raise their own children, of children to be raised by their parents, of teens to finish school, of women to get health care, and to be safe from being fired or evicted based soley on their pregnancy or unmarried parent status. It is good to know about resources like this.