[2023 한인회 운영사례 -  아이오와 한인회]

회장 김연경

[Partnering with Local Government Agencies to support Immigrant Parents and Bilingual Youth]

1. 한인회 개요
KASI was established in 1979 and is the only non-profit organization in the state of Iowa serving Korean, Korean-American, Korean adoptees, and individuals and groups passionate and interested in learning more about Korea and Korean culture. The main goal of KASI is to promote and enrich social, cultural, educational and economical life of the Korean-Americans residing in the state of Iowa and to increase a mutual understanding, friendship and collaboration between Korean-Americans and fellow Iowans. KASI has been inactive for more than 20 years and was reestablished in 2021 by the 20th president, Yeon Kyeong Kim-Cho. In the past 1.5 years, KASI provided interpretation services and supports to Korean and Iowa companies, hosted the Korean Village at the annual CelebrAsian festival bringing more than 30,000 people statewide, providing Korean speaking community members with COVID-19 and vaccine related information, and growing Korean Americans as leaders through leadership training and mentorship.

2. 주요 모범사례
The Korean population is estimated to be around 10,000 in Iowa and most of the Koreans living in the state are students or those connected to universities. Koreans in Iowa are relatively young and educated compared to other bigger cities like LA, Atlanta, or Chicago. Furthermore, Korean businesses are relatively small scale compared to other cities with established Koreatowns. Considering these factors, when KASI relaunched in 2021, the focus was to (1) collaborate with national and local government and nonprofit agencies for funding, (2) collaborate with local/mainstream communities to increase mutual understanding and friendship between Korean community and Iowans, (3) support Koreans by working with government agencies to share valuable national and local health information, and (4) provide educational support to youth and their families.
One example of this was our “Summer Book Club for Bilingual Youth” and “Immigrant Parent Workshop and Book Club: Supporting our Children as Readers” project in the summer of 2022. In an effort to meet the above four (4) goals, KASI was able to secure $4500 “Community Grant” funding from local government to provide free summer programing for Korean youth and their parents. We also partnered with local nonprofit to share COVID-19 health information to our Korean communities and received $10,000 for our efforts during the summer of 2022 and beyond. Using this grant, KASI collaborated with local elementary teachers to share expert knowledge with our youth and parents through book club meetings and parent workshop.