{"id":328332,"date":"2016-06-08T03:00:21","date_gmt":"2016-06-08T01:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/south-korea-out-of-love-for-the-city\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T15:04:20","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T13:04:20","slug":"south-korea-out-of-love-for-the-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/south-korea-out-of-love-for-the-city\/","title":{"rendered":"South Korea: Out of Love for the City"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"KakaoTalk_20160523_214624894_03\"<\/a>Seongnam, South Korea, more than a million inhabitants on the southeastern outskirts of Seoul, <\/strong>is a growing city with the presence of large companies that further the economic development of the area in a city where there is great wealth alongside abject poverty. \u201cIn Korea there is a strong immigration of women from several Asian countries: China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Japan, and more. <\/strong>They come here to marry or to escape from misery. Hence, the many multi-cultural families, most of them living in the poor areas of our city,\u201d explains a Focolare group from Korea<\/a> who were attending the OnCity <\/a>international conference in Castelgandolfo, Italy. One of their greatest needs is integration. \"KakaoTalk_20160523_214630445_02\"<\/a><\/strong>In the Multicultural Centre where some of the Focolare members work, they teach women immigrants to speak Korean, and have proposed establishing some kind of child care<\/strong> programme to entertain the children while their mothers learn the new language. \u201cBut at one point the government funding was removed and we couldn\u2019t continue with our activity,\u201d they say. \u201cWe told some friends who share our commitment in living ideals of unity and peace in our city. Each one of them gave what they could: time, skills \u2013 taking on the problems and situations of many people.\u201d \u00a0<\/strong> They were faced with truly painful situations:<\/strong> settling in a new country is not easy. For many, the Centre was a place where they could catch their breath, a place where they could share one another\u2019s problems, especially financial problems. \"KakaoTalk_20160523_220455062_02\"<\/a>In 2012 we opened a small market <\/strong>where you could buy what you needed at a low cost. We called this small temporary project: The Mary of Nazareth Project. Many people helped us <\/strong>by donating clothing, toys, office supplies and linens.\u201d What could be done with the small sum of around 353 Euros? <\/strong>\u201cWe decided to follow the Economy of Communion<\/a> approach of distributing the profits: 1\/3 for a family (a Cambodian family that our community had taken into its care until they could stand on their own); 1\/3 to buy any additional things they might need; 1\/3 for everyone in the group (to celebrate the birthdays of\u00a0 immigrants who didn\u2019t have families with them).\u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong> Finally, the Maria Market recived a donation from the government <\/strong>and the Centre decided to remodel the shop. But it was only reopened in 2014 after much expectation. The following year, they received a visit from the Mayor. In June 2015, with the spread of Mers in Korea, 2,900 schools were closed and 4,000 people were placed in isolation. Like many public locations the Centre also had to close. However, during the period of the shut-down, \u201cwe visited people in their homes and supported them in the little things. In the end, the Centre gave us a \u201cThank You\u201d plaque. Now Maria Market is open again <\/strong>and always developing new ideas like mail delivery service for long distance customers. For the group running the project it continues to be \u201ca concrete experience of answering the needs of our neediest sisters and brothers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amidst the contradictions of so many big cities, a small group of volunteers forms a strong support network amongst immigrant families in one of the most disadvantaged areas of the city of Seongnam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-328332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328332\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}