Hey! I’m Isabel, a Westminster senior and one of Think North Korea’s presidents for the 2014-15 school year.
I became involved with TNK last October after watching a presentation by Michael He and Catherine Zhang on the human rights crisis in North Korea. Before then, I hadn’t known much about the crisis (or about North Korea, for that matter.) I knew that the regime was communist, a term I had learned in history class, and I knew from various newspaper headlines that it had nuclear weapons. But I knew nothing of the severe malnutrition, the routine public executions, or the concentration camps.
Catherine and Michael’s presentation opened my eyes to an issue of which I was largely unaware. It blew my mind that this level of depravity still existed in the world, and that the suffering was actually enforced by a government meant to protect its people. Even if I could only offer a small contribution to the collective effort, I wanted to throw my efforts toward the cause.
I contacted Catherine soon after the presentation, and she welcomed me into the group. Now, as co-president, I actively seek out opportunities to present to others. I know that by the end of the school year, I’ll be much more confident in my speaking skills.
Last Friday, we set up a booth at our school’s Alternative Gift Fair. The fair offered a different approach to sharing our project: reaching out to strangers in one-to-one conversations. For me, this was definitely scarier than presenting to a group of people. At first I thought, What if they aren’t comfortable donating money? What if they’d rather just keep walking? But soon I quit worrying about potentially making the stranger or myself feel uncomfortable. I realized that neither of us would be wasting our time by engaging in a short conversation. Even if I could only speak to them for 45 seconds, they would learn something new and contribute to our group’s cause by lending their ear.
By the end of the two hours, we raised $300 by selling rescue certificates. I’m amazed that we were able to attract so much attention to our booth despite it being only a poster and a stack of certificates. It definitely helped to have five of us there (Me, Pranav, Maxxe, Avanti, and Kennedy) because we were able to engage multiple people at once. I’m also proud of our progress over the course of the night. The first thirty minutes were spent standing awkwardly around the poster and staring at people as they passed by. In the last hour, we had become much more assertive and were actually inviting strangers to listen.
I consider the Alternative Gift Fair a success, and I’m looking forward to participating in similar events in the future (GivingPoint Sparks Event, anyone?)
-Isabel Gupton
Think North Korea 