By Kim Se-jeong
Staff Reporter
Molly Holt, head of Holt Children's Service, an adoption agency based in Korea, has been awarded the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit by Norwegian King Harald V for her dedication to improving the lives of abandoned children in Korea and for promoting Korea-Norwegian relations.
During an award ceremony in Seoul March 24, Norwegian Ambassador Didrik Tonseth said, ``For more than 50 years, Holt has performed remarkable and dedicated work to improve the lives of thousands of Korean children.''
He continued, ``Personally, I have never met someone who has been so fully devoted to improving the lives of other people as Holt.''
Holt has been helping abandoned children find new homes in Korea as well as in the United States, Norway, Denmark, France, Luxemburg and other countries.
And through her, Mapo-gu, a district in Seoul where the Holt Children's Service is located, and a Norwegian county of Askr signed sisterhood relations, another contribution recognized by the Norwegian king.
To date, the merit has been given to only two Koreans: the late Chung Ju-yung, founder of Hyundai Group, and Park Tae-joon, founder of POSCO.
Molly Holt is a daughter of Harry Holt who founded Holt Children's Service in 1955 after the 1950-53 Korean War. He and his wife at that time adopted eight Korean children.
Since its establishment, it has found homes for about 100,000 abandoned Korean children. Of them, Norwegian families adopted 7,000.
Holt began helping Korean orphans in 1956 at the age of 20. She had left Korea from time to time since then for education, but Korea has now become her permanent residence.
She now lives in Ilsan, Gyeonggi Province, running a facility for the disabled. Amb. Tonseth frequently visits there.
He said that 67 Korean adoptees to Norway and their families will be visiting Korea early next month, some of them perhaps will seek out their families here.
It is an annual event mainly financed by the adoptees and their families. Yet, ``it gives them a chance to see Korea for themselves,'' and the embassy in Korea gets involved in helping them every year, he said.
Tonseth also touched upon a transformation of the Korean adoption culture.
Aware of negative stigma attached to adoption among Koreans, he said, ``Today, adoption is increasingly becoming more acceptable within the Korean culture. Also, Korea has become a rich country. Hence relatively few Korean children are now being adopted abroad.''
Actually, the number of domestic adoptions has increased, surpassing that of overseas adoptions for the first time in 2007. According to Holt Children's Service, domestic adoptions totaled 1,303 in 2008, while overseas adoptions reached 1,250.