2023
December 31st
Jeju Y*** Home Donation
Stopping by a convenience store with friends, choosing snacks, and buying whatever caught my eye had always felt ordinary. Yet I began to wonder whether these small pleasures were equally ordinary for everyone. Realising how much I had taken for granted, I started looking for nearby children's homes where I could share some of these everyday joys. Still, I hesitated. Was it presumptuous to think that something so small could make a difference? I disliked the idea of positioning myself as someone helping those less fortunate. Instead, I wanted to think of it simply as sharing. By spending a little less of my allowance on myself, I could offer another child something I would have enjoyed.
So, on the last day of the year, I set aside some of my savings to send snacks and small gifts. December 31st had always been a day I looked forward to as per the Korean age system you turned a year older, and I hoped to give someone else a reason to anticipate it too. I knew these gifts were nothing grand. But something I might buy without a second thought could become someone else's Christmas surprise or Children's Day treat. I wasn't giving up what made me happy. I simply wanted one more person to share in that happiness.
December 27th
Jeju A*** Children's Home Donation
One day, I came across a notice requesting donations of everyday household items. Thinking of how many perfectly usable things sat forgotten in our homes, I began collecting what my family no longer needed. I then reached out to friends and their parents, asking them to contribute anything they could spare. Rather than buying something new, I wanted to give existing belongings a second purpose.
Soon, we had gathered clothes, blankets, shoes, lamps, kitchen utensils, and other household essentials. What surprised me was how much we could collect without spending anything. Something gathering dust in one home could be exactly what another household needed.
Until then, I had associated giving with spending money. This experience taught me that generosity could be as simple as recognising the value in what we already have. More importantly, I wanted to turn this one-time collection into a continuing effort to connect what people could spare with what others needed.
December 24th
Donation to World Vision Zambia
As Christmas approached, I began putting together a package for C******a, a child I sponsored through World Vision in Zambia. I collected toys, stationery, and pre-packaged foods, thinking about the little things I had always enjoyed at Christmas. Yet choosing what to send proved more difficult than I had expected. I knew what would make me happy, but I couldn't assume that the same things would mean as much to someone whose everyday life I knew so little about.
As I packed the gifts, I also began thinking about his friends. So much of what I loved about Christmas had little to do with the presents themselves. It was the excitement of opening them together, comparing what we had received, and finding ways to enjoy them with one another. I decided to include extra items, hoping that the package might become something he could share with his friends rather than enjoy alone.
I realised that even a gesture made with good intentions could begin with assumptions of my own. I had started by thinking about what I could send. By the end, I was thinking more about what I could learn. The distance between us had not changed, but I had become more conscious of it, and more curious about the lives and perspectives that existed beyond my own.
Members
September 1st Onwards
Weekly Letter Translation
I began translating letters exchanged between sponsored children in various regions like Tanzania and their Korean sponsors, expecting the work to be largely linguistic. Instead, I found myself encountering lives and perspectives that no textbook or article had ever brought me quite so close to. Each letter offered small glimpses into everyday routines, family relationships, school, and the things children looked forward to. I became increasingly aware of how much could be communicated through a few handwritten sentences.
One letter, in particular, has stayed with me during my first week "I live with my mom because my dad left us." The sentence was striking in its simplicity. There was no attempt to dramatise or explain it, just a child describing an ordinary fact of their life. I remember hesitating over the translation, wondering how to preserve that directness without imposing my own emotions onto their words. It made me realise how easily a translator could unintentionally alter not just someone's language, but the way their experiences were understood.
Over time, I began to see translation as an exercise in listening rather than speaking. I was learning about unfamiliar cultures, but also confronting the limits of my own understanding. These letters taught me that maturity was not always found in elaborate reflections or profound declarations. Sometimes, it was present in the quiet honesty of a child describing their world exactly as they knew it. My responsibility was not to interpret that world for them, but to ensure their own words could travel across the distance intact.
July 1st
Sewing Sanitary Pads (Part 2)
A few months after my first attempt, I returned to sewing reusable sanitary pads for a second round. This time, the process felt more familiar. My stitches were neater, I worked more efficiently, and I knew which parts required the most patience. Yet the questions I had been left with in May had not disappeared. If anything, making another batch reminded me how easily a project could become a cycle of producing, donating, and starting over.
As I worked, I thought again about the possibility of local production. I wondered whether the time and resources we spent sewing pads elsewhere could instead support people in making them within their own communities. But I also began questioning my own assumptions. Would reusable pads be practical everywhere? Who would decide how they were made and distributed? I realised that even a well-intentioned solution could overlook the preferences of those expected to use it.
Returning to the same activity taught me something the first attempt had not. Persistence mattered, but repetition alone did not guarantee progress. I wanted each round of work to leave me with a better understanding of the problem, rather than simply a larger number of finished pads.
May 1st
Sewing Sanitary Pads (Part 1)
As part of my role in the Student Council, I helped introduce free sanitary pad dispensers in every girls' bathroom at school. I saw it as a simple solution to a problem that should never have existed. Yet I soon realised that while we were discussing how to make pads more accessible, elsewhere, the question was whether they were accessible at all.
This led me to a project sewing reusable sanitary pads by hand. As I cut fabric, stitched layers together, and corrected uneven seams, I thought about the contrast. At school, we could install dispensers and replenish their supplies. Here, I was spending considerable time making something I had always been able to buy without a second thought. I began wondering whether locally run production could provide more consistent access while creating opportunities for those involved.
What stayed with me was how differently the same basic need could be met depending on one's circumstances. I began to understand inequality not simply as a difference in what people possess, but in how easily they can access what they need. Sewing a pad was a beginning, but I wanted to think beyond individual acts of giving towards systems that would make such giving unnecessary.
Monthly Donation
