Aid worker awarded for helping Haitian refugees

By Kim Hyo-jin

“I thought aid work was about sharing what I have. But it turned out to be more than that. Seeing the lives of Haitian refugees changing, I felt I was getting more from them,” said Kim Worr-lim, Haiti branch manager of the aid group, Serving Friends International.

The 46-year-old aid worker was recognized by the 2016 Korea Overseas Service Award sponsored by Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), Friday, for his dedicated service in a refugee camp in Haiti.

Kim set up a village in cooperation with the local government of Leogane, Haiti, for refugees who lost their homes in the 2010 deadly earthquake. Renting a 13-acre sugar cane field from the local government, he has built a school and 134 houses since 2011.

The school accommodates 512 students in 12 classes and provides them with free meals. It was made possible by donations Kim sought from generous Koreans and businessmen.

He is working on building more houses in cooperation with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in the village. In an earlier house-building project he received assistance from a Korean contingent named “Danbi unit” deployed to Haiti for earthquake relief in 2010. In the hopes of making refugees feel at home, he went ahead with an idea of painting pictures on the wall.

Kim came to Haiti in January 2010 as an emergency relief worker following the deadly earthquake that killed over 300,000 people.

“It was like hell. While bodies were still buried under the rubble or rolling around on the land, aftershocks continued,” he said. “Even when the earth trembled up and down, I saw giggling children running around the ruined buildings. It instilled in me a belief that we can still start something.”

While providing medical and food supplies in the earthquake-stricken region, he wanted it to establish a long-term mission for putting refugees back on track. He moved to the country with his wife and daughter in 2011, hoping to resettle disaster-torn refugees in a new village.

While rebuilding the infrastructure, he carried out an anti-illiteracy project. In alliance with UNESCO, he helped refugees learn their language in a three-month course at the school.

“It was really rewarding,” he said, recalling the moment when a woman in her mid-30s wrote in a letter that now she understands her life better, being able to discern if medicine is to be taken orally or rubbed on the body, and understanding what a newsletter from her son’s school says.

Kim also focused on encouraging refugees to realize the value of self-support. He helped families learn how to earn a living, supporting themselves by making and selling home-made products -- for example, baskets.

The aid worker said he is planning to live in the country permanently. When asked what led him to this decision, he replied, “Because it’s the work that benefits and pleases me the most.”