▲ Photo provided by naver.com Pastor Kang Myung-soon (Corporation Leftover Love Sharing Community)

   When Pastor Kang Myung-soon (Education, '71) strolled down the street from the Ewha subway station to the front gate, on a day like no other some 30 years ago amidst other female students in their tidy skirts and well-swept pony tails, she probably didn't know that one incident would help her find a purpose to pursue for the rest of her life. It was the sight of a girl working in the bleak basement of a sewing factory that she saw through the grim little windows along the way to school.
   As the weary and agonizing eyes of the factory girl met those of Kang, she could not resist the rush of anger. That night, young Kang could not fall asleep as those fatigued eyes of the factory girl kept lingering in her mind. That is when she decided to live her life for the betterment of the less privileged and give a hand to those in need.
   After marrying her husband whom she met at a voluntary service camp during her college years, Pastor Kang founded a small church with her husband at Sadangdong. From that time forward she began helping abandoned children by providing them food, shelter, and education. The project to help the children expanded and further led to the establishment of the Corporation Leftover Love Sharing Community.
   Currently, the organization supports 97 regional childcare centers and is funding 3000 children monthly. Pastor Kang has long encouraged college students to help the deprived and serve as the wind to lift the wings as a propeller for the hearts of the children. Many college students nowadays are volunteering as mentors for these children at the childcare centers and also for the socially disadvantaged group.
   "Both the emotional joy and physical assistance college students can bring to these children are beyond words. By playing the role of big brothers and sisters to these children with scarred hearts, the college students can supplement their longing for education as well as attention and love," said Kang.
   Pastor Kang thinks that each and every one of these children has the right to get education, happiness, and cultural benefits and the college student mentorship is one way to successfully grant the children their once- deprived rights. In addition to helping the children, Pastor Kang also focuses her project on helping the socially marginalized, such as North Korean women defectors and prostitutes in military camp towns.
   The Corporation Leftover Love Sharing Community provides a micro-credit service for people to obtain loans and start their own businesses in order to enhance their living standards. With the loans, many of the women make products such as aloe juice and bean paste to sell via the organization's website.
   According to Pastor Kang, helping someone is serving their needs and putting oneself in a position inferior to the beneficiaries. Nonetheless, people often misjudge and think that they are helping those that are less well-off than themselves, subordinating their situation and stance. Such biases should not exist when helping others.
   Pastor Kang's "helicopter theory" suggests that the essence of helping children and others lies not in providing them with the propeller and a set of maps to give them direction, but rather to boost and encourage them to rise as a sole, strong individual to walk on or fly over his or her own unique path.

저작권자 © Ewha Voice 무단전재 및 재배포 금지