Hi. Recently, refugee problems have become an issue around the world. Do you know that famous novelist Victor Hugo, the musician Chopin, the scientist Einstein, and Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, were refugees? They all left their countries because of wars, political repression, religious problems. In this lesson, I'd like to talk about refugee issues. Now let's listen to the news. Do you know what day is today, June 20th? It's World Refugee Day. Although you may think the refugee issue is far from our lives, we also have refugees in Korea. As the refugee law went into effect in 2013, the number of refugee applicants has increased by 5 times from 1,574 to 7,542 in 2016 and the nationality of them has diversified. Today is World Refugee Day, so I'd like to invite a special person here to talk about the meaning of refugees and their issues. We invited Mr. Hyo Seong Yoon, a goodwill ambassador for Refugee Organization. Welcome. Hi. Nice to meet you. Thank you for coming. Thank you for inviting me. When it comes to refugees, people often think of them as people who are in trouble because of wars or disasters. Is that right? Yes. According to the Convention on Refugees, refugees are people who are outside their own country because of reasonable fears of being persecuted due to the race, religion, nationali, being a member of specific social group, or political opinion. The refugees are the people who cannot be protected by their own countries or doesn't want to be protected by their own countries because of the fear. In short, refugees are people who are forced to leave their home countries to escape from persecution and placed in a situation that they cannot be protected by their countries. After listening to the explanation, I feel that anyone can be refugees because there are problems of religion, race, politics, etc everywhere. What do you do as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Refugee Organization these days, Hyo Seong? Yes, my job is to encourage people to pay attention to the refugees and help them by letting people know who the refugees are and how they live. How do the refugees live? They have to fight death from the moment they escape from their hometown. Even if they reach refugee camps safely, they face problems with food, clothing, medical care, education, etc. Especially, when the life as refugees is prolonged, they tend to despair and choose to commit suicide. Especially, in case of children and women, I heard that it is easy to get exposed to human trafficking or sexual assault. So, is there ways for ordinary citizens to help the refugees? Yes. We also were the people who left hometown and went to refuge about 60 to 70 years ago. I would appreciate your interest in the refugee issue and it would be nice if you could sponsor the organizations or groups that support the refugees. And most of all, I'd like you to think that the refugees are not the ones who causes us harm but the ones who need help. Thank you. What's the news about? What is the topic of the news? After the anchor said June 20, the day of news was World Refugee Day, he said that 'Today is World Refugee Day, so I'd like to invite a special person here to talk about the meaning of refugees and their issues.'. So the topic of the news is the meaning of refugees and their issue. What kind of people are the refugees? What kind of people are defined as refugees? You can tell it by the conversation between the anchor and the guest, the goodwill ambassador for the Refugee Organization. Anchor asks if refugees are generally people who are in trouble for wars or disasters. About this, the goodwill ambassador for the Refugee Organization explains the meaning of refugee according to the Convention on Refugees. Here, the convention means a promise that several countries have discussed together and decided on something. In other words, it is called a negotiated treaty. The Convention on Refugees is a promise that several countries discussed and came to a conclusion. According to the Convention on Refugees, refugees are people who are outside their own country because of reasonable fears of being persecuted due to the race, religion, nationality, being a member of specific social group, or political opinion. The refugees are the people who cannot be protected by their own countries or doesn't want to be protected by their own countries because of the fear. In plain language, they are the people who left their own country and chose not to be or cannot be protected by the country because of the fear of persecution due to the skin color, nationality, the god who they believe in, one's own political opinion, etc. In short, refugees are simply people who are not protected by their own country as they left their homeland to avoid persecution. What are the difficulties that refugees face? What kind of problems are the refugees experiencing? When the anchor asks about the lives of refugees, the goodwill ambassador of Refugee Organization, Hyo Seong Yoon replied: They have to fight death from the moment they escape from their hometown. Even if they reach refugee camps safely, they face problems with food, clothing, medical care, education, etc. Especially, when the life as refugees is prolonged, they tend to despair and choose to commit suicide. So, the refugees are in danger of their lives from the moment they escape from their homeland. And even after they reach refugee camps, they face problems with basic living like clothing, food and shelter. And when they're sick, it's not easy to get treatment or get medicines, and it's hard for children to go to school properly. The bigger problem is that when the life as refugees is prolonged, they tend to despair and choose to commit suicide. Later on, the anchor also added the problems that the weak people like women or children among the refugees face. It is said that it is easy for them to get exposed to human trafficking or sexual assault. In short, the refugees face problems with clothing, food, shelter, medical, education issues. When the life as refugees is prolonged, they tend to despair and choose to commit suicide and in case of children and women, it is easy for them to get exposed to human trafficking or sexual assault. How many actions are proposed that general public can do for refugees? What are they specifically? When the anchor asks what the public can do for refugees, Hyo Seong Yoon says that Korean people also left home and flee to safe place when the Korean War broke out. He mentions the history that Korean people also left home and couldn't be protected by home country and emphasizes that we should care about refugee issues. Specifically, there are 3 things. Shall we take a look at these? He said that he would appreciate people's interest in the refugee issue and it would be nice if people could sponsor the organizations or groups that support the refugees and most of all, he'd like people to think that the refugees are not the ones who causes us harm but the ones who need help. In short, what we can do are, firstly, taking interest in refugee problems, secondly, sponsoring the organizations or groups that support the refugees, and lastly, considering the refugees as the people who need help, that is, changing the perception on the refugees. Shall we summarize whole contents lastly? What can't the refugees get as they left their homelands to avoid persecution? In other words, what can't they get once they leave their homelands because of the possibility of harm caused by the issues of religion, race, politics. That's right. They can't get protection of their own country. Next, let's keep going. As the refugee law went into effect in 2013, the number of refugee applicants has increased by 5 times from 1,574 to 7,542 in 2016 and the nationality of them has diversified. The refugees have to fight death from the moment they escape from their hometown. And what kind of problems do they face even if they reach refugee camps safely? That's right. They face problems with food, clothing, and shelter basically. They face medical problem that they can't get treatment properly when they're sick. And they also have difficulty in education, etc. Well, next. When the life as refugee is prolonged, they tend to despair and choose to commit suicide. And in case of children and women, to what do they get exposed easily? What kind of damage do they get? They can be sold somewhere or be sexually harmed. That's right. It is easy for them to get exposed to sexual assault. What can we do to help the refugees? There are three things we can do. What we can do are, firstly, taking interest in refugee problems, secondly, sponsoring the organizations or groups that support the refugees, and lastly, considering the refugees as the people who need help, that is, changing the perception on the refugees. In other words, we can help the refugees by paying attention to refugee problems, sponsoring the organizations or groups that support the refugees, and changing our perception on the refugees. In this lesson, we listened to the news about refugee problems. We don't try to understand why the refugees escaped from their homelands risking their lives. We just ignore or exclude them. But we also have a history of being the refugees in Korea. People who left Korea during the Korean war and fighters for independence who left Korea during Japanese colonial era were all refugees. Let's find out if you have a history of refugees in your country, too. This is the end of the lesson. See you later.
