YWCA and Citibank Korea recently opened 20 centers across the country to run an afterschool program for multicultural students.

The program called “Discover Your Multicultural Gifts” is designed to help about 200 children from multicultural marriages and expatriate families.

Child refugees from North Korea and underprivileged youths can also join the program, which is now in its second year. Last year YWCA and Citibank ran the classes with some 180 students and 36 instructors participating. 

“Right now, this program helps multicultural children fit into Korean society. In the future, we would like to expand this program to provide a place for multicultural and ethnic Korean students to experience each others’ culture,” said Cho Eun-seon, the program and communications director.

This will help young students develop a sense of globalism, which is important in today’s international society, Cho told the Korea Herald.

The number of multicultural students reached 46,954 in 2012, a five-fold jump from 2006.

However, multicultural students and immigrant children in particular face strong language and cultural barriers. Only 15.8 percent of immigrant children attend high school, according to research by the Ministry of Justice last year.

In the YWCA-Citibank program, students from different backgrounds are grouped together. Half of the session is for helping students with their homework, and the other is for group activities such as music, sports and reading, said Kim Jee-hea, the project manager.

YWCA’s 52 local branches in Seoul, Incheon, Busan and other cities contact schools and multicultural family support centers to recruit students. Teachers are YWCA volunteers handpicked by local branches. They go through two phases of teacher training, which includes teen psychology and analysis of multicultural teens. Each teacher mentors up to five students, and leads two-hour classes twice a week.

By Lee Sang-ju (sjlee370@heraldcorp.com)