JOY ELLEN YOON — Ignis Community Launches the "Ice Feet Challenge"

On December 4th, Ignis Community launched the “Ice Feet Challenge” for individuals to sympathize with children in North Korea by posting on Facebook and Instagram their bare feet being submerged into ice-cold water (#ignis_icefeetchallenge). Sympathizers from the United States all the way to South Korea started a chain reaction, challenging their friends and colleagues to join them in raising funds and awareness for shoe donations to children in orphanages and remote, mountain villages throughout the DPRK.

The reactions of each participant were just as varied as the methods in which they used for the “Ice Feet Challenge”. Shrills and squeals of laughter were common as each person got over the initial shock of ice on their bare feet. Others were more stoic but gradually started to breath heavier and develop mental fog as their feet continued to be submerged in sub-freezing temperatures. A few participants even began to mentally break-down and hyperventilate.

Initially, the challenge began with sympathizers placing their feet into a bucket of ice water. But then as winter hit the Northern Hemisphere, participants became more creative. People started going outside and stepping into prepared piles of icy snow. Whole families, then, started participating by stripping their feet bare in the midst of live, snowy downfall.

Ignis Community’s 2020-2021 “Ice Feet Challenge”

Imagine what it is like to live in frigid temperatures up to -30 degrees Celsius (-27 degrees Fahrenheit). Some of us may even be familiar with this climate ourselves, but few of us have experienced what it is like to live in North Korea.

Having lived over ten years in the DPRK, I know what it is like to suffer from the freezing, cold winter in North Korea. Not only are the outside temperatures freezing, but more often than not, inside the buildings are also freezing. There is no escaping the cold. I coped by wearing fur-lined long underwear just to keep my body warm. My feet were the biggest problem, though. No matter how many layers of socks I had on, when I wore standard dress shoes, my feet were constantly cold.

In conditions like these in North Korea, frostbite and hypothermia are real struggles. Having a warm pair of winter snow boots makes all the difference in the world.

For the past ten years, Ignis Community has donated shoes and verified the delivery of children’s snow boots distributed each year throughout the DPRK. The verification team typically takes two extensive trips- one trip to the Northeast area known as Rason and another trip into the capital city of Pyongyang from which other provinces of North Korea are visited.

On one such trip into the Free Economic Zone of Rason, snow had already started to fall on the icy roads. It was around Christmas time as the team drove over the winding, mountain roads into town. The conditions were hazardous enough that the team’s car slipped into a minor accident. But despite the mishap, the shoe verification personnel safely arrived in the Rason area where they visited local daycare centers and kindergartens that had received Ignis’ shoe donations.

Ignis Community’s Shoe Verification Team Driving into Rason, DPRK

At one particular daycare center, the team met three year-old Jung Ro-Jung. It was this little girl’s first time seeing foreigners, and as a result, she clung to her teacher as her eyes inquisitively glanced over her visitors. Ro-Jung’s teacher explained to the team how much she cherished her gift of pink, winter shoes. According to Ro-Jung’s grandmother, it was the first time that the little three year-old had even seen snow boots. The boots were so precious to her that they never left her arms until she went to bed at night. Even while she slept, she made sure her boots were by her bedside.

For Ryo-Jung and many children in North Korea, a simple gift of winter boots is a treasured possession. Just as the shoe verification team cherished safely reaching their destination on treacherous, winter roads, these children value the gift of warm footwear. Not only are the shoes warm but they also protect them from slippery, icy paths.

So far, Ignis Community has reached just over 60% of our goal for the 2020-2021 winter season. Please join us in providing the remaining 40%. Our goal is to give approximately 110,000 children in North Korea warm, winter boots these chilly, winter months. Each pair of boots from the production all the way to distribution only costs $13 US dollars.

Donations can be given here: https://igniscommunity.org/shoedonation2020

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