Lately, I haven’t been able to record much progress about VolKo. I’ve been insanely busy adjusting to high school and juggling all my math and science projects.
Still, VolKo is moving forward. I think I’ll finally see some visible results by February. I’ve continued meeting the Minwoos regularly, but there hasn’t been any big change with them.
But today, I want to write about something specific: their eating habits.
First of all, the Minwoos are really small for their age. And at least from what I feel (maybe because I see them often), they don’t seem to have grown much since I first met them two years ago.
Whenever we go outside, they get really fixated on food. They try to eat as much as possible—even when they’re already full, they still want more. But their dad (the head of the group home) told me not to buy them food. His reason was that if volunteers keep buying them snacks or meals, the kids will get “spoiled” by the food they get outside, which I kind of understand.
So I’m not allowed to buy them anything when we meet. But every time I see them, I keep noticing the same thing: they always eat so poorly. Maybe it’s because I only see them on weekends, but they told me they mostly eat instant ramen on weekends. At my house, that’s something my mom never lets me eat even once a week, but the Minwoos eat it all the time.
I don’t think there are people actively starving in Korea anymore. And after spending time with the Minwoos, I realized that the government support system is actually pretty strong—financially, the kids don’t seem desperate.
But there are three areas that feel really lacking.
First is their living environment. Group homes are meant to be small, family-like spaces instead of large institutions, so each home has around five kids living with a teacher. But in reality, there are only two bedrooms, it’s extremely cramped, and none of the kids have beds.
Second is education. Sure, they go to school for free, but learning things like coding or foreign languages—which are basically essential today—seems almost impossible for them.
And third, something I’ve been feeling more recently: the quality of their food. Maybe this isn’t true for every group home, but the Minwoos are so thin and so small that it honestly worries me.