For the past ten years, Ignis Community has been raising funds through supporters and international partners to provide orphans and children in farming and fishing villages through North Korea warm footwear during the freezing, winter months. Winters in the DPRK often reach to -20 or even -30 degrees Celsius, which is -4 to -22 degrees Fahrenheit. In rural areas where children often wear rubber shoes with no insulation, children from the ages of five to fourteen are being provided proper protection against frostbite. Children in North Korea usually walk to school, at times their stroll every morning and afternoon may require them to cross running streams as well as walk several miles. Each time Ignis Community donates winter snow boots, it brings a smile to the faces of both the students and teachers of the schools. Up to date, annual shoe donations to orphanages and rural kindergartens has provided approximately 8,000 pairs of shoes over the past ten years to needy children throughout the DPRK.

Despite the fact that the COVID-19 outbreak has caused a decline in the world-wide economy, an organization known as Hope Sharing Share Holders Association has recently provided a large donation for much-needed winter boots and sneakers for children in remote, rural areas of the DPRK. From June 10th to 29th, 2020, 1,664 share holders from the South Korean pharmaceutical company known as Celltrion participated in the fundraising campaign to raise over 67,000,000 won or approximately $56,000 USD. In an official ceremony on July 1, 2020, the Chairman of Hope Sharing Share Holders Association, Mr. Jang Won Gyo, delivered to Ignis Community’s (aka Sunyang Hana) CEO of South Korea, Dr. Yang Chang Seok, the amount raised for children’s footwear in the DPRK.

The donation came at just the right time. Due to COVID-19, the DPRK borders have completely closed. For the most part, no imports are allowed in and no exports are allowed out. International travel has completely stopped, including the travel for diplomats and foreigners residing inside North Korea. These extreme precautions have helped to contain the COVID-19 outbreak in the DPRK. There have yet to be any officially reported cases of the virus in the country.

But what has helped to preserve both the health and lives of North Korean citizens is harming an already vulnerable economy. Since 2016, global sanctions against the DPRK have had significant negative impacts upon the North Korean economy, particularly in the area of jobs for women working in textile and shoe manufacturing industries. The textile industry was one of DPRK’s major exports and income for women in the nation.

In 2008, Ignis Community introduced a social venture into Rason, DRPK with the help of a business expert. Ignis first began a social entrepreneurship in the Rason Free Economic Zone thanks to an investment from a humanitarian-focused group called Barnabas Capital. Through their investment, a shoe manufacturing company was developed that provided employment to close to one hundred local residents in the area, with the majority of them being women. This social venture provides life-sustaining income to local families in the Northeast rural province of the DPRK.

Since all exports of goods from the DPRK have been banned due to both global sanctions and the border closing, it has become almost impossible to pay our local employees. The humanitarian-motivated business that was birthed to provide women in the rural area of Rason with jobs is now at risk of failing. As a result, Ignis Community’s annual shoe donations have been helping to keep the project afloat by purchasing each shoe at cost while also providing much-needed winter wear for children throughout the nation.

Now with the complete closing of all travel and transportation to and from the DPRK, Ignis Community’s team members who typically reside inside the country and oversee the project have been stranded outside the DPRK. The COVID-19 outbreak hit Asia during the Chinese New Year, one of the largest holidays of the year for most Asians. Due to this unique timing, all Ignis Community employees were traveling outside the DPRK when the nation’s borders closed. We have yet to be able to personally visit the DPRK since February 2020.

Thankfully through fundraising campaigns such as this one, the shoe manufacturing project in Rason is able to continue producing shoes and retain essential jobs for local women. The shoes manufactured through Hope Sharing Share Holders Association’s donation will allow the project to produce children’s winter boots in time for delivery before the harsh, cold months of November and December hit the DPRK.

If you are interesting in participating in Ignis Community’s tenth annual shoe donation project, visit:

https://igniscommunity.org/sharing-warmth