Invest in the Leaders Who Will Shape Korea's Future
The moment for leadership may come unexpectedly. The preparation for it must begin now.
No one knows when change may come to the Korean Peninsula. Young North Koreans are already building careers and asking how their experiences can help others and contribute to a free and unified Korea.
The North Korean Young Leaders Assembly (NKYLA) connects them with mentors, experts, and peers as they grow into that responsibility.
Make a year-end gift to expand these opportunities to more emerging leaders.
More Than the Story of What They Escaped
North Korean escapees are often introduced through what they endured or left behind. But that is only the beginning of their story.
Today, NKYLA participants are becoming healthcare professionals, researchers, educators, advocates, and community leaders. They are building careers, supporting families and communities, and thinking seriously about how the opportunities they have received can become opportunities for others.
Their paths are different. But each is showing what can happen when lived experience is joined with education, opportunity, and a desire to serve.
Meet three of the young leaders already doing just that.
Geom Hyok Kim
Preparing before change comes
Geom Hyok grew up in Pyongyang on a path toward diplomacy. While studying in Beijing, he encountered information about North Korea that changed his understanding of his country. He and other North Korean students began reading, debating, and asking what responsibility came with what they had learned.
After resettling in South Korea, he studied political science and worked in public policy. At NKYLA, he spoke about why young leaders must keep preparing:
“Even when the world is ready to help us, if we are not ready, change will be delayed.”
Your gift helps create space for emerging leaders like Geom Hyok to learn from one another and prepare for the work ahead.
(Mi-gyeong's identity will not be revealed based on her personal request.)
Mi-gyeong Park
Turning opportunity into service
Mi-gyeong Park was 15 when she crossed the frozen Tumen River with her mother after being forced out of school in North Korea. After rebuilding her life in South Korea, she went on to graduate from Seoul National University and become a dentist. Today, she provides dental care to young North Korean escapees and hopes to help shape policies that give others the kinds of opportunities that changed her own life.
“What changed my life was opportunity.”
For Mi-gyeong, leadership is not simply about what she has achieved. It is about what she can now make possible for someone else.
Jihyang Kim
Discovering what education can make possible
Jihyang Kim received only an elementary-level education while growing up in North Korea.
After resettling in South Korea, she returned to school, excelled academically, and eventually became a Fulbright Scholar studying education in the United States. Today, she is exploring how access to information and education can help people question what they have been taught and imagine new possibilities for their lives.
“Information crosses borders. Learning changes people. People change societies.”
Her long-term hope is to expand educational opportunities for future generations on the Korean Peninsula.
What NKYLA Gives Emerging Leaders
NKYLA brings young North Koreans together with people and opportunities that can be difficult to access on their own.
Participants learn from experienced leaders and subject-matter experts, meet mentors who can help guide their professional growth, and form relationships with peers who understand both where they have come from and the responsibilities they hope to carry forward.
They also have the opportunity to think beyond their individual careers and ask how their knowledge, profession, and lived experience might contribute to Korea in the years ahead.
An Assembly may last only a week, but the growing network continues to build every year. A professional connection can open an unexpected door. A friendship formed among participants can grow into years of collaboration.
Your gift helps make those opportunities possible.
See What Your Gift Can Make Possible
Every contribution, at any level, helps give emerging North Korean leaders access to experiences and relationships that can continue shaping their lives long after the Assembly ends.
Invest in the leaders Korea’s future may one day depend on.
Their Stories Are Still Being Written
The group photo at the Lincoln Memorial brings Migyeong, Geom Hyok, and Jihyang’s stories together around a shared idea: freedom and opportunity matter in what people choose to do with them. Each is putting their experience to work through healthcare, advocacy, or education.
NKYLA gives emerging leaders opportunities to learn from one another and build relationships that can support their work for years to come. We cannot know when Korea’s next historic moment will come, but we can invest in people who are already finding ways to contribute.
Your year-end gift helps them keep learning, connecting, and growing as leaders.
