North Korea classroom during a Choson Exchange visit in November 2019
A year like no other has passed, and unprecedented disruption has not spared the DPRK, nor Choson Exchange’s activities within. Confronted with serious questions on how our various in-country programs might persevere in the face of a global lockdown, we have pivoted, adapted and discovered new successes in a slate of new programs that will carry a legacy beyond COVID19. Read more in our 2020 Annual Report.
While we entered 2020 with an exciting catalogue of new workshops, summits and educational activities, the majority of these were in-country exercises and indefinitely postponed while we awaited better fortunes. However, we quickly pivoted and embarked on online education formats delivered to DPR Koreans in-country and abroad.
These two programmes are the first of their kind within the DPRK and have set a landmark precedent for further education opportunities in the digital space with North Korea, while continuing our mission of supporting entrepreneurship in the DPRK.
e-Learning has allowed Choson Exchange to continue our programmes with North Korea.
Beginning with Project ChangeMakers (PCM), we reached out to North Koreans abroad, particularly students who will eventually return to the DPRK and contribute a key role in shaping their country’s future. Partnering with the EU Business School in Geneva, this involved the crafting of detailed syllabi on key topics to equip North Koreans for their burgeoning role in international digital business. Over 6 weeks, this pilot programme was completed for dozens of North Korean students worldwide, through live and recorded sessions arranged and distributed by Choson Exchange. Students received official certification from the EU Business School, and course feedback was overwhelmingly positive.
Continuing our successes with PCM, we are planning to drive our in-country training in 2021 with a domestic-focused program. This will involve a different format to PCM and continues our focus on the small and medium sized business community in DPR Korea.
Kangwon province, bordering both North and South Korea, and the site of our Kangwon Development Initiative.
Simultaneously, our research efforts were intensified with the Kangwon Development Initiative (KDI), a high-level economic roadmap borne out of our prior experience several Choson Exchange workshops conducted in the Wonsan-Kalma Tourism Zone. Our research and roadmap for Kangwon was presented at a joint World Economic Forum and Jeju Peace Forum panel in 2020. Moving forward, we have realized the beginning of an ambitious five-year education initiative in Kangwon. Our work in 2021 continues to analyze Kangwon’s economic potential and prepare training material for future programmes in-country, while spreading international awareness of the province.
2021 will be an exceptionally challenging year for the DPRK, considering recent reports of economic difficulty triggered by external and internal factors borne from COVID19. However, our partners’ enthusiasms have motivated our pivot in the face of difficulty, and we have become one of the few organizations to maintain active programmes for the people of the DPRK. Our digital ventures and research initiatives have made real progress towards our shared goals, and we are confident 2021 will open new (and for the first time, digital) pathways to changing the lives of the people of North Korea for the better.