[Editorial] When the Homeless Help Others

Homeless people working to get back on their feet at a facility in Seoul's Yeongdeungpo have been helping elderly people living alone as the year comes to a close. 206 homeless individuals earning W10,000 a day put together W830,000 to buy things like toilet paper and canned tuna for 15 elderly people in the area. The gifts themselves were valuable, but to the elderly people living all alone nothing is as great a gift as being called on at home.

They say that people in difficult circumstances know the pain of those in similar situations better than anyone else, but still, doing what they did never comes easily. Wanting to help others is not the same as actually doing it. They started when they learned about other activities where people were helping others out at year's end, proving that any ideas they couldn't because they are homeless were wrong. They have shamed a very many people. People are embarrassed for being far better off yet not caring for others, and then for not caring for the homeless. But people should not stop at just feeling shame. Let us care for others in our midst. Caring warmth can melt any harsh year-end freeze.

Not that simply calling for people to engage in volunteering is the answer, because solving the problems of those who suffer needs a systematic approach more than anything else. The government needs to make ours a society where people thrive together through social welfare. Now is the time to review problems with the system and figure out what would be the best ways to help people get back on their feet. It is also time to look after migrant workers in the same way. Doing such things is how to make the work of those homeless individuals more meaningful.

The Hankyoreh, 29 December 2005.

[Translations by Seoul Selection]