North Korean refugee Joseph Kim

Joseph Kim escaped alone from North Korea at the age of 16, first to China and then to the United States.

Joseph Kim is from the northern region of North Korea. Growing up during the great famine of the 1990s, at the age of 12 Joseph saw his father starve to death, his mother disappear and his sister flee to China to search for food. In 2006, when he was 16, he decided to make the dangerous escape alone out of North Korea to look for food -- and for his sister. While hiding in China, he met a Korean-Chinese grandmother who protected and fed him until he found help from Liberty in North Korea (LiNK), a NGO that provided more stabilized shelter and later helped him to emigrate to the United States.

Joseph arrived in the U.S. in 2007 as an "unaccompanied refugee minor" and was resettled in the care of a foster mother, Sharron Rose. He is now in college studying international business, while also working part-time managing an educational center. He is still searching for his sister.

TEDGlobal2013
Session 9: Forces of Change
Thurs Jun 13, 2013
2:15 – 4:00