Tough to love: trials of a volunteer

Thirty-nine-year-old Ron Fowler, an English teacher from the United States, has spent the last eight years in Korea focused on helping orphans. His critics, however, say he is also focused on himself, with one accusing him of being narcissistic and even delusional.

Fowler first came to Korea in 1985 as a U.S. serviceman. After he was discharged from the military in 1990, he returned to the United States to continue his studies, but was back in Korea three years later.

Fowler told The Korea Herald he started his volunteer work with an orphanage in the Gangnam area of Seoul. "These children obviously needed help."

And by chance, it was a hobby that inspired Fowler to begin raising awareness of the problems and provide the help that was so badly needed.

"A few years ago, I did a cross-country hike from Seoul to Busan. The local people loved the idea of a foreigner hiking across Korea. After that I started long-distance walking to raise awareness of the orphanage system." Fowler said.

<**1>But there was an unexpected side-effect. "When you start to raise awareness about the orphanage system, you begin to raise awareness about yourself. People began contacting me. They wanted to help. I started to become the contact point (between them and the orphanage)," said Fowler.

Fowler established a volunteer network, Y-Heesun Volunteer Support Group, mainly consisting of English-speaking foreigners to visit orphans. With time, the group was regularly visiting some 20 orphanages in Korea.

The growth of the group also increased awareness of the orphanage system and the contribution volunteers could make. The group now has some 3,000 members on its e-mail list.

The term "orphan" in Korea doesn`t only apply to children who have lost their parents in accidents. Divorce and financial difficulties have long been a major cause for children being placed in the orphanage system.

The orphanage system in Korea not only provides a refuge for children who have been abandoned or who have lost their parents, it is also a business that often provides a lucrative income for orphanage operators, foster services and adoption agencies.

Fowler has authored a plan to reduce the number of children in care and transform the orphanage system, which he claims is "profit oriented" from being dependent upon keeping children in the system to support money-making enterprises.

To ensure the best possible care for the children, Fowler also proposed a retirement plan for the operators of orphanages who were 60 years old or older. He told The Korea Herald that some orphanages were being run by people in their 80s and even 90s - obviously not a satisfactory situation.

"The key to keeping these children at home and to prevent them entering the system in the first place is to provide more options to the parent. A basic cost of living allowance, educational costs, financial and parental advisers as well as neighborhood `babysitting` and other childcare programs should be implemented."

<**2>On his website, Fowler says: "Single parents might otherwise keep their children at home if their personal situations were slightly improved. In many cases children are taken to an orphanage with the promise of being returned home when the financial situation improves. However, very few of these children ever leave the orphanage because finances rarely increase and the cost of living most certainly increases."

He added: "Reform means the number of the children in the system needs to be cut by at least 80 percent, that means increasing the number of adoptions within Korea, getting more families to keep the children at home. It means taking the children out of the system."

Through his work with the government, Fowler said the perception towards adoption in Korea has already begun to change. There are fewer children actually coming into the system, and more children are actually going home or finding new ones here in Korea.

However, Fowler told The Korea Herald that while some of his suggestions are being implemented, there has also been a downside related to his volunteer work and that not everyone is happy with his efforts. Fewer children in the system will hurt the bottom line of those who rely on the orphans for a living, and disappoint childless couples seeking to adopt.

"Many of the new policies about orphanages that have been initiated by the government were first suggested by me," Fowler said, "but although I have received no official credit, I am facing a backlash."

Fowler told the Korea Herald that he is being persecuted by certain government and private agencies that believe their interests have been hurt by his actions, and even said he has evidence that his computer and website have been hacked. Former volunteers and other individuals have attacked Fowler, accusing him of being a control freak who rejects any form of criticism. Fowler says his critics are not seeing the big picture.

The bottom line, according to Fowler, is that if his proposals for reform are successful then many people who are making money from these children, including orphanage operators and adoption agencies, are likely to be put out of business.

"One orphanage I worked with was willing to arrange private adoptions. And adopting privately saves people tens of thousands of dollars rather than going through the agencies," he said.

Some agencies who offer Korean children for adoption overseas charge as much as $100,000 in fees. Fowler said the vicious attacks on him seriously affected his relationship with the orphanage operator, but he is confident the relationship is durable and will endure.

The attacks on him and those close to him have had a negative impact on his volunteer work, he said. "What I want to do is just help the orphans in Korea, and I hope these people can leave me alone."

(shrlyhan@yahoo.com)





By Shirley Han Ying