Incorruptible Mass

Solidarity LIVE! Welcome Project (immigration), Tufts Mutual Aid, South Korea

September 30, 2020 Anna Callahan Season 3 Episode 5
Incorruptible Mass
Solidarity LIVE! Welcome Project (immigration), Tufts Mutual Aid, South Korea
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Audio portion of Solidarity LIVE! video episode where we hear stories of how our community is weathering the COVID-19 crisis -- including someone from the Welcome Project, Tufts Mutual Aid, and a local who is currently in South Korea.

This show was broadcast live on April 29, 2020.

[Auto-generated transcript may have errors.] for tuning in to

Anna Callahan:

Solidarity LIVE! where we take questions and stories from the community in Somerville and Medford, we bring in experts to talk about those issues, and then we work to solve those together. Today I have on someone from The Welcome Project, she's going to talk all about everything they do with our immigrant community, and a specific fund that she's she's working with today. And I'm going to bring her right in. So this is, let me have her join us. Great. This is Kenia Alfaro of The Welcome Project. Hi, Kenia, you're live.

Kenia Alfaro:

Hi.

Anna Callahan:

Hi, how are you?

Kenia Alfaro:

I'm doing well, as well as I guess you can be right now.

Anna Callahan:

Yeah, yeah. I would love for you to just tell us a little bit about what the Welcome Project does in general. And then specifically, how you're dealing with COVID.

Kenia Alfaro:

Sure. So my name is Kenia Alfaro. I'm the director of current engagement at The Welcome Project, and American immigrant nonprofit based in the city of Somerville, but we work with immigrants throughout the whole Greater Boston region. And our mission is to build the collective power of immigrants so that they can participate in community decisions, whatever that might look like, whether it be cities or schools, or their own neighborhoods. And so usually what we would have kind of going on throughout the school year is an array of different programs, we have our largest program is our adult ESL program, and we serve over 200 adult immigrants in those classes. We have an interpretation program for bilingual high school youth in both Medford and Somerville High School. And we have a lot of different other youth programming that focus on K-8 students, whether it be cultural identity, and just kind of exploring what it means for them to be bicultural. And, you know, we act upon a lot of different organizing movements as well, like the driver's license campaign here in Massachusetts, we have a Rapid Response Network serving to, you know, inform community members of any ICE activity as well. So that's just kind of like a quick snapshot of, you know, usually what we have going on.

Anna Callahan:

Great. I will mention, I just got a comment from someone saying that there's a little bit of an echo. So I don't know if anybody's not muted, or if they have people later in the show who are on right now. But if you can mute, that would be great. Hopefully, this problem will resolve. Great. So it sounds like you have you guys really have good insight into our immigrant population and how they're doing. And I would love to hear as much as you can. how they -- how our immigrant community is doing now, during COVID?

Kenia Alfaro:

Sure, yeah. So I think we've we've taken the past, I don't know how many days we've were in the been in this situation, just to kind of assess some needs and figure out, you know, a lot of the first initial things we're finding out how are families that we were working with we're doing, and then it became, well, how are the rest of our immigrant immigrant families doing throughout these cities? And so, you know, through The Welcome Project, we were hearing a lot of stories of folks losing their jobs, of folks kind of been getting worried about paying rent, food access was becoming a really, really large issue. And so, you know, the city of Somerville, you know, I think really stepped in and, and did a lot of things to provide some of those food resources. And--

Anna Callahan:

You're saying food resources are a problem because of just lack of funds, is that right?

Kenia Alfaro:

It's -- it's lack of funds, but also, you know, at a certain point, you also did have to like, really fast, you have to have a mask to go inside a grocery store and lots of people didn't have. So they felt intimidated to go into grocery stores to go and get the supplies of food. And so funding and kind of that fear of like going "What if people are going to judge me if I don't have the proper attire to go inside?" So those kind of were coming about, just in the people that we were talking about -- people that we were talking to and that spurred us to [inaudible] we had --

Anna Callahan:

I think, seems like you've frozen. Ah, so give me one second everyone. It looks like we had a little problem with Skype. Hang on. We are just trying to get Kenia Alfaro back on from The Welcome Project. I'm gonna go ahead and do what I can to get Kenia back on, to get our folks from Tufts Mutual Aid back on. They are also -- Ahh, great. So it looks like, oh, we have everyone back. Amazing. So sorry about that. I do not know exactly what happened. But I lost all of you and my whole Skype went down. So I apologize. Thanks, everyone for sticking with us. So Kenia, you were talking about food resources and how the city of Somerville has really done some work there to make food resources available to people.

Kenia Alfaro:

Yeah, they did. I think, you know, the public schools, we were hearing a lot of families kind of going into the public schools, they did an amazing job at providing breakfast and lunch for a lot of families. You know, the food pantries like started up and running and trying to really get some food out to families. And that was, I think, we've heard that be an issue and the calls I've been making maybe the past two weeks as well, I've been hearing a lot of people who are still worried about food, in other cities, not in Somerville, but in other cities as well.

Anna Callahan:

Right. Yeah. And do you know if, if folks in your-- in that community have been plugging into mutual mutual aid, so that Medford and Somerville Mutual Aid, or in any of the other cities mutual aid project?

Kenia Alfaro:

A few of them had, there are a lot who had not heard of mutual aid, nor did they understand the concept of a mutual aid. Right. So I also, you know, like was learning about, okay, what does this mean, what does it look like? And so I think in the past two weeks, that we've been -- I've been making a lot more phone calls. So my next question is, though, did you know that you can also get food from other places? And have you contacted MAMAS? Have you contacted like, Kay, the Cambridge? Or have you contacted other mutual aid like networks, to get them plugged into different resources so that they know that they're out there? And I think it comes, people are very surprised at least half the families that I work with, they're very surprised that someone's just going to delivery groceries to their, to their front doorstep, but they're really, really appreciative of that as well.

Anna Callahan:

Great. Yeah. And you have a particular fund that you administer, is that right? Do you want to talk a little bit about that?

Kenia Alfaro:

Yeah, sure. So the immigrant Assistance Fund that we have running through The Welcome Project right now. It is-- we started, we had a donor who really wanted to help out, we knew that there were a lot of economic hardships. And we knew that we wanted to help out, we just didn't -- we weren't sure how to do it. And, you know, there was the first step and more people wanted to see how they could help us and how they could donate and how they can help families. And it quickly became something very, I guess, easy that we said we needed to do something even if it's providing a little bit of financial support. And so this fund is open to immigrant families in Somerville, Medford, Cambridge, Everett, and Malden. And specifically those areas. We know that Somerville does have some support services, but we have a lot of students who come from those different cities. And we really wanted to make sure that if our students are coming from those areas, that there are other families who are also in those cities who might also be needing some resources. And so we really want it to be the outreach where in some cities, there might not be as much support as maybe Somerville has, we wanted to make sure that at least, families could have a little bit of something through And so, you know, it's a very simple, I guess, quick us. application. It's just a name and a phone number with language preference. And we give -- we give folks a call back, we ask a few questions, and from there, we kind of see how we can support them. As we tell a lot of the families it's not a lot of money that we are able to support them, but it helps to put a little bit that they might be having and then connecting them through different resources throughout. And so I think, you know, a lot of the funding and the phone calls, you know, the communication with families is, yeah, we're providing them some financial support that they might need, but also it's about connecting them to different community resources that they might not be aware are there and that just might be for many different reasons. It just might be communication, it'd be like language barriers, or whatever it might be. So this fund is just there to give a little -- to just give a little of partial-- a little cushion for any expenses that they see for themselves and for their families really.

Anna Callahan:

Yeah. I'll just remind people that if you have any questions, you can just put those in the comment, and the comment box, and we can pull those right in. So how in your outreach, you guys must have a lot of languages on hand, I imagine. Like when you're calling through people, like how many how many different languages do you have to rely on to reach out to people?

Kenia Alfaro:

Yeah, so. So I speak -- I'm native Spanish speaker. So I do, basically all the Spanish intakes. And then the second language, the highest need that we had was Portuguese. And we, because we have an interpreter -- interpreters program within our organization, our interpreters have been able to help out in Portuguese. Spanish and Portuguese have been the highest needs right now. We had some for [Haitian] Creole, which as well, we also have some interpreters and some other volunteers who are able to help. We also have some families that we work with who are higher -- like English confident, and so they have also been helping us. We've been able to stipend them, and they've been helping us as well with some of these calls. So it's, it's a, they really thanks to, to the interpreters, I've really discovered three way calls, which I had to Google, how do you do a three way call. And so even though like our staff, internally who are making the phone calls might not have all of those languages, we do have, you know, our, our mission within The Welcome Project, because it supports all of these programs allows us then to have those language, that language capacity to be able to reach out to as many families as we have.

Anna Callahan:

Great. That is great. And other ways that people can help. I mean, it sounds like people can donate to that fund specifically. And this-- and the fund, I assume is like directly related to COVID. And it started with COVID. And so it really has to do with that. Are there other ways in addition to that, that people can -- can help?

Kenia Alfaro:

You know, as of right now, the -- donating to the fund is really, really amazing for us, we're always looking for -- in house, we don't have folks who can help us maybe with like graphics. So if anyone is like, volunteering for graphics, or for media photographer, whatever it is, we're always kind of looking for ways for folks to help us create something that could give us a bigger outreach as well. So volunteering, there are a lot of skill sets that we wish we could have at The Welcome Project. And sometimes it just takes the one reaching out to us and saying,"Hey, I have this skill set. Do you have any need? Would you like any of this?" And usually we do who we need some support in that. And so that's another way as well. Yeah. But like you said, this fund really came up because of COVID. And we want to make sure that we are able to just keep sustaining this fund as much as possible. So then I would say about donating to this fund is also a huge, huge, huge way to help us. And again, any other any other idea that you have, you know, we have people approaches us? Do you need art supplies for families? Like yeah, we'll take some we'll deliver them, you know, we'll kind of do like, anything that's out of the box and creative, we will probably find a way that we can kind of use these these volunteer opportunities.

Anna Callahan:

Yeah, good. It sounds like at one point, there was a need for masks. I know. You know, a lot of folks in MAMAS are excited to make masks. So I don't know if that's something that people still need.

Kenia Alfaro:

Yeah, you know, with this whole new rule in Somerville, we're kind of really trying to assess what that means. And

Anna Callahan:

let's, you know, where there's a new law and Somerville thing that went out of your house, you must wear a mask and there is a fine, up to three. Yeah, I think fine.

Kenia Alfaro:

Right. And so we are you know, it we're trying to kind of assess what that looks like. And if people aren't even hearing that news, because a lot of this news does go out there any communication like city communication, and a lot of our families aren't actually subscribed to that, nor do they feel comfortable subscribing to those email, communications, or even phone call communications. So, [inaudible], I've been asking whenever people tell me like, Oh, I haven't been going to the groceries, I try to ask them as to because what is it like? Do you need a mask? And I've had a few people who have said, Yeah, I would like to face covering and I would like a mask. But we're not entirely sure how we would even get them to those to them quite yet. So we are trying to brainstorm and really rethink what this -- what this order, what this law means for our families and the impact that it's going to have on them and also accessing other different resources, basic, basic, resources. So that might be a need. And again, there's some things that we don't even think about on the spot that someone could email us and say,"Hey, did you think about this? or do you know if you need this?" And we might actually need it, we just haven't actually thought about it in the moment.

Anna Callahan:

Great. Do you want to give just a little plug for like how people can find you, how people can donate to the fund or help out in other ways? Like specifically like, what's the website? And

Madeleine Clarke:

yeah, sure,

Kenia Alfaro:

so folks can visit our website, it's welcomeproject.org. And you can find information about us and other programs that we have as well. We are thinking about potentially doing things virtually this summer. And so one things that we're always looking for are ESOL teachers or folks to help us with our like camp, our camper after school programming, you that website will kind of give you an a more of a better overview, I think of what we do. If you would like to donate, there's also a little blue button on the top right corner as well that you can donate, or you can also find out more information about our fund right there as well or any other resources regarding COVID in multiple cities as well.

Anna Callahan:

Wow, thank you so much. Great work that you guys are doing! Wonderful to have you on, and look -- keep us updated. Let us know as things change if there are more needs and other ways that people can help.

Kenia Alfaro:

Great, thank you so much for having me.

Anna Callahan:

Thank you. Great to have you. So our next guests are from -- hang on, we're going to add from the Tufts Mutual Aid we have give me umm I'm getting closer here you Madeline Clark, and nickeil and nickeil. I'm gonna let you say your your name because I think I might get it wrong. And you know what, I hope that you too will introduce toughs mutual aid and introduce yourselves. And somehow My computer is not plugged in like it's plugged into my ear and my battery's gonna die. So I'm going to duck out for just a second in this COVID home home studio here. But But why don't you go ahead and introduce Tufts Mutual Aid and yourself? I have you live now. But you're muted ahh great nickeil

Nikhil Nandagopal:

Yeah, sure. Um, so Madeline and I are part of the many, many organizers and members of tufts mutual aid. So we're essentially a collective of people who are coming together well, kind of banded together really quickly after Tufts announced, just like many other universities, it's shut down and like cessation of live classes and other activities and a transition to virtual learning. And that meant that people had to move off campus, essentially, across the country, across the world for -- like, in within five days. So Mutual Aid specifically has been focused on making sure that the students who are most in need of resources get the resources that they need. So essentially, we're a facilitator. Yeah. [inaudible] Would you like to add anything to that model?

Madeleine Clarke:

Yeah. I mean, I think you covered it very, like really well. Um, yeah. And, yeah, I think that's about that. And that about covers it the basics.

Anna Callahan:

So can you, can you tell us some of the stories that you've heard, as you've been working with the with the folks that you're working with, like, what do you hear from people? Like what's happening in their lives, right as as a result of what of these these changes?

Nikhil Nandagopal:

So we, I mean, I think there's just such a huge variety in the circumstances that students are in and I will just probably start chronologically from the need to really find the resources to move off campus, essentially, that was the first challenge, I think, a lot of monetary resources for travel, finding a place to stay. So housing, and also finding food, and other resources that you need for literally just packing and all the all these things that just come up unexpectedly, because this is like, by definition, a very unexpected situation. So after that, we've obviously as an educational institution, had to deal with students and also as professors and instructors, and just members of the tough community had to deal with this new virtual mode of learning. And of course, the experiences that we had in person didn't directly translate to a virtual environment. So many people are in either in homes that do not really support their academic success. So that could be because for a range of reasons we've heard people with, on well, parents or other relatives and people that they're living with, in very small cramped spaces, or in not emotionally, just unsustainable and unhealthy environments as well at home, and having added responsibilities. So there are a lot of like, academic and policy and systemic changes that had to come about, not only in terms of tangible resources, but also in terms of the wide variety of situations that students found themselves in, and like really making sure that their voices were heard by the administration and allowing them a platform to like voice those changes, and voice their concerns and their needs, and really get those needs met. And change the expectations that we have, as well.

Anna Callahan:

We have a question. From Joel Greenberg, he says "how much notice were people given to move off campus? Seems like a huge burden for students and families."

Madeleine Clarke:

Yeah, it was about like it, I think it was like five days, just about, I think we got them or maybe six, we got the note like an email notification on March 10, that we would have to leave campus and everyone had to be gotten by Mark by the net the following Monday. And so it was like the like, five, six days in between there were just a madhouse, like, you could just feel like the panic and the grief in the air. And both the both of us are seniors. And so there's just the added layer of this, you know, this time get is supposed to be like our last, you know, like, the last couple months, like getting to have some closure. And having to rush all of that was definitely difficult. Um, and they're about the, like, a lot of tough students live off campus. Anyways, they go most juniors and seniors live in off campus houses. And so there are a lot of folks who have stuck around. But obviously, it's very different since we can't be seeing each other anymore. Yeah.

Anna Callahan:

Yeah. And -- and would you say? I mean, obviously, you don't know numbers, but maybe you do. Like what percentage of Tufts students actually had to leave town -- like had to find -- like were on campus and had to find somewhere else and ended up maybe going home?

Madeleine Clarke:

I don't know.[To Nikhil:] Do you know any numbers off the top of your head?

Nikhil Nandagopal:

I feel it has to be above half the student body, definitely. It has to be at least 60 to 70% of students, because the students who are off campus are either juniors or seniors, because you have to stay on campus for the first two years. So that's already half the population of Tufts. And then there's obviously seniors like me who did live on campus, or juniors, whatever year you are, even graduate students who had to just leave. So honestly, it's definitely in the, it's in the thousands. If you include graduate students as well, it's definitely in like, about four or five, easily 5000 or more. So yeah, it's there's just a massive, like, move out of students. And that's just, that's a tough system, medium sized school. There are obviously, you know, state schools are across the country, and, you know, other places that have to that, essentially, are moving literally millions of students across the country in the world. So, lots.

Anna Callahan:

Yeah. And so, you know, it's interesting, because when I, when I first heard of Tufts Mutual Aid, I thought, okay, it's like, you know, the other mutual aid societies helping provide, you know, helping people make sure they, they're safe in their -- that they can pay their rent, that they can get groceries and things but it sounds like you are also pretty deeply involved in making sure that students who who have to now continue their education are able to do that part of it. So like, how do you how do you balance those those or, you know, what, what is -- what do you feel has been happening for students who have to continue their education who have to do everything online? Like how disruptive has that been to their education? Maybe talk about that side, just the educational aspect of it.

Nikhil Nandagopal:

Yeah, so I will probably speak a little bit about this just because I've had the privilege to be involved with a group of students to spread like we we honestly are working collectively together on pretty much everything and mutual aid, which is one of those beautiful things about it. I honestly have not seen a more like restorative and like inspiring thing. Movement happen in a long while, if not, since I've come to tufts. But honestly, like, it's really, it's really great to see people kind of pouring their energies into what they're passionate about. So a bunch of us kind of worked on these systemic changes that we wanted the administration to make, and liaised with the senate where that already has existing relationships with the admin. So we actually like, made a course guidelines proposal that initially wasn't pulled from the student body. It wasn't exactly, you know, voicing every single concern that that the students had, but it was taken from the service that we set out with the general concerns. And then also later, what we did is send out another survey asking what people needed. So in the beginning, there were a bunch of surveys. So that's how we kind of gathered information. And within this, like course, changes or guidelines proposal to the, essentially the like, higher ups, like the deans of engineering, school of engineering, arts and sciences, we identified like some core issues. So we requested that attendance requirements and synchronous learning were not required. So that doesn't, that means you should be able to access and view all course material, including discussions and provided some suggestions of how to conduct discussions asynchronously with multimodal engagement. And that's something that I think should be a feature of education in general. I mean, like, I can talk forever about pedagogy. So this is very much in my area of interest. And I feel I have a lot of strong feelings about it. But in this situation, I think it was most important to make sure that students could do what they needed to do and take care of themselves and their lives and their home lives, which has so much variety, without conforming to rigid standards set by the existing academic system that we have in higher education here in America. So which itself is comparatively sometimes, depending on like what other educational systems you're comparing to, could be a lot more relaxed and liberal. But that's only when I think people in power allow students allow faculty allow everyone else to feel comfortable to make their own decisions and choices and feel like they actually have an option. So that was one big thing. We advocated for making things available online, the option of alternative assessments and really sending out a statement to urge all faculty which got sent out to all faculty to urge them to switch away from traditional exams, because the level playing field which in my opinion does not even exist, because there's so many systemic barriers. And so many uneven turfs that we navigate just in our like multiple us identities every single moment. So that suppose it playing field level playing field would not exist, if you are taking an exam from varied environments, and not like all in the same room. At least that was an argument we can easily make. So we kind of targeted what we what we collectively knew that the administration would respond to combined with what we we felt the student body would most need. So essentially, yeah, that kind of summarizes and also like having exam policies that allow students to take exams unprepared. And in terms of like, the efficacy of it, a lot of this did not actually amount to because as we know, policy change takes so a quite a long time, and especially when the administration and others are dealing with so many unexpected factors of this pandemic. They weren't really making the systemic or like policy level changes. I don't think they would have might have been, I'm not sure whether they would have been able to, but it's something that we definitely are urging for the future so that students have a more equitable educational experience. But essentially, just making sure that the word gets out so that then faculty who do have a lot of breadth of choice in terms of like what they require for their courses. Make a decision that works for them and for the students because they're also facing additional responsibilities. A lot of the time.

Anna Callahan:

Yeah, yeah. So just a last question about the other side, so the making sure people can get groceries, they could pay for their rent, all of these things. Have you seen for their students that remain? Are you interested? at all with Mama's with the other another different mutual aid, like how is this mostly students helping students? How are you able to, to help those students who are in the area to be able to sort of afford the changing circumstances that are happening to them now, but but specifically like rent food, the basics,

Madeleine Clarke:

yeah, so we have an on campus food pantry that kind of got started in the wake of the campus closing, and we were able to secure like an on campus space in our campus center. And, and with, with all the students moving out, we were able to collect like an enormous amount of food from students leaving and convert that to like food to supply a pantry and then have been restocking it with support from tough dining services and something like very generous donations from the Graduate Student Council. And a couple other sources. And so and the pantry has been getting like an enormous amount of use, like I, it's open Monday through Friday, and like, every time that I go, either some, like a couple students will pass through, or like, and every time I go, like if we need to, we will have needed to restock it already. And so we aren't collecting any kind of hard data on like how much food is flowing through it, or how many students are using it just for privacy reasons and just like the capacity, or lack thereof, of being able to keep track of those kind of numbers, but but just like anecdotally, it's been getting a lot of use. And it's it's super heartening to know that we're able to like help, you know, like, fill a gap and people like having access to food. And whether that's like just because like they're nervous to go to a grocery store can't afford it. Like just being able to support the test community in that way is been super heartening to be a part of that. And we're hoping that the pantry will be able to stay open at least until the end of the school year, if not for the summer as well, um, and hopefully lays the groundwork for for something more long term. But it's been like a good helpful, like stopgap measure in the meantime. But and there's Yeah, so there's, it's been getting a lot of use.

Anna Callahan:

Yeah, what do you see as a long term?

Madeleine Clarke:

Um, it's hard to know, at this point, because, I mean, there's still so much uncertainty as to whether students will even get to return to campus in the fall. I'm just there, there's, I feel like every day I'm reading some kind of article that's, that talks about one side or the other. And, and so I think, you know, if it's, it's impossible to know, at this point, um, like, what, what the fall will look like and it's it's tricky, because, like, both of us are seniors and so it won't affect us directly. But it's, I know I have a lot of friends who are juniors and just the uncertainty of knowing if they'll get to come back for their senior year is heartbreaking. And, and yeah, really scary.

Anna Callahan:

Yeah, absolutely. All right, how can what can people do and doesn't like like it really has been the tufts mutual aid is the students helping the students, students who have moved linear food and the graduate students you're helping in the you know, so are there ways that other people in the community can be helpful and what would that be?

Nikhil Nandagopal:

Yeah, so there I mean, several ways I think um, so first of all, I think when Madeline talked about the food pantry earlier that has been one of like, our core, like very grounding efforts that you know, she had so many other people have such an amazing amount of effort into and this really paid dividends. Like that has been really useful even for me personally. I can definitely speak to that. So that is something we'd love to keep love to see continue. I think Madeline, you could probably see more about how we, we might want to continue that or solicit donations for the pantry if possible from especially from especially to rescue food, I think, yeah, Madeline is like one of the coordinators for Food Rescue tough. So, yeah, so that's something that we'd love to continue, right.

Madeleine Clarke:

Yeah, um, yes, definitely. I think like we're like I said, like the, it just always seems like we're like running out of food in the pantry. And any like, we're connected With, with like some local nonprofits that have that have been really supportive in helping us access food, but any other resources or just like, whether that's like actual food, or, or like just advice on how to run a food pantry are helpful for us, since, like students, and there are like staff members that are, have been really helpful in getting it started. Like it's just it's an incredibly collaborative process. And how can people reach to their website? Is there a email address? You can reach out to phone number anything? Yeah, um, I think that we have a Facebook page for toxic nature. That is, like, checked on by several volunteers, like daily. And that's it's toxic mutual aid, Facebook, if there's anything else,

Nikhil Nandagopal:

yeah, so there's the Facebook page is actually the main point of contact to you FTS mutual aid. And essentially, we if for people who are not on Facebook, we do have a website that is also linked in the face, I believe, even without an account, you would be able to access the website. But our main point of contact is really the Facebook page. And you can ask for and offer help, by messaging us, or just taking a look at all the posts that we have about the pantry about other efforts, especially like if you are a student to share your experiences doesn't matter where you are coming from. Or if you go here, like one dream of ours is to really expand this, keep this going not only for tufts but also outside of tufts. So we definitely want it to be a continued effort, certainly within our institutional community, but also outside of it. So now that I think the semester is over, we really want to kind of branch out into better interfacing mommas, something I personally have definitely wanted to do and like talking to other nonprofits seeing how we can help, because also there is a bunch of us who like really, who, whose summer plans have been either changed or you know, a lot of most students would not be able to go to their in person internships if they have any more jobs or whatever they plan to do. So students who are in the area and are willing and able virtually, we'd love to help out in in to, you know, fulfill your mission and also like, make sure that we can make this a sustainable effort and always open to new ideas. So I think that will definitely pick up in the next week or so. So that would be a great time to reach out and just kind of liaise with us. And kind of just like, figure out how we can not only get through this situation, but like life in general a lot more equitably than before.

Anna Callahan:

Great. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks both of you for coming on. It's really great to hear about, you know, this part of our community that we probably don't don't hear a lot about, you know, outside of the tufts community. So really great work you're doing thank you for for doing it. And thanks for being on. All right, so our next person, and I'm just gonna click a click here for a minute or two. Okay, we now have someone who is from here, but it's currently in South Korea. And I don't know how many people listening know about South Korea and their, the way that they have have dealt with COVID. But it's very different from how the US has dealt with COVID. And so here is Howard Kim. I'm just gonna pop your name up here. And, and you are alive. So Howard, it's great to see you.

Howard Kim:

It's great to see you as well.

Anna Callahan:

Thanks for coming on.

Howard Kim:

Yeah, absolutely. It's great to be here. I'm so I'm a software engineer, usually based in the Summerville area have lived there for the last 10 years or so. And was there right when COVID broke, and my parents happen to live in Seoul, Korea. And they were I got a lot of questions from my friends around early February on saying are your parents All right, or your parents? All right, are you? Are you worried about your family? And I was thinking, I'm honestly a lot more worried about my friends and the people around us and myself than I am for my parents because I knew that the South Korean public health response was more better prepared for what was coming and as has kind of been borne out in the numbers. So I'm, I'm going to share a little bit of by personal experience about how I go into Korea and all that and what that entails and what I saw on the ground, and also the kind of the global the global situation on as sort of a grounding factor for people who haven't been looking at the news on. So personally, I was in the same boat as everyone else's everyone is in right now, I spent about two weeks in isolation, um, from mid March to the end of March on doing the quarantine thing that we all all the responsible citizens are doing. And I realized that it didn't make that but I was really lucky to have family in Korea. So I'm a US citizen. I was born in the states and I was a little bit of concerned that if I happen to get sick in on Korea, I wouldn't be covered with health insurance there. But I was seeing their news reports that was coming in about how there weren't enough ventilators had everyone. I'm Ruben the hospitals and that you have to be you have to wait until you're basically not to be frank, basically at death's door before you'd even be seen by a doctor.

Anna Callahan:

Anyway, during this news, you mean in America?

Howard Kim:

in America? Exactly. Yes. And I was thinking that that sounded really scary. So um, I got onto a plane to Korea and came on, and it planted on at the end of March. So March 30. And immediately got put through, but immigration process and a kind of a quarantine process that I'd never seen before I've traveled to and from Korea a fair bit. And basically, I was taken to a secure location and tested. So basically, as soon as I got off the plane, I saw, as soon as I stepped out of the airport, I saw like lines of testing booths. So very unlike the United States where you can't get a test unless your arm, although I don't know, it's probably a little bit better now. But But at the end of March, you basically could not get a test unless you are basically you already had it.

Anna Callahan:

So yeah, what I've heard is that it was at first you could only get tested, even if you had symptoms, you could only get tested, if you had a known contact who if you've been in contact with someone who was known to have had covid that was how limited the testing was. And now then it was if you had symptoms of COVID they're they're loosening it up a little bit, but it is very still very difficult to get a test.

Howard Kim:

Right. Um, and that's something that was on my mind when when I made the move. Um, and then as basically as soon as I stepped off the test, I got a free test. So just to be clear, I am not a Korean citizen, I do not have Korean health care, I don't have anything like that. Um, but I basically got tested for free by people in PE protective equipment. And then I was for one day, I was taken to a secure location to with all the other non citizens while the test results came in.

Anna Callahan:

I was just gonna ask if the test results are good. Okay, so yeah, and they

Howard Kim:

came in overnight. So it came in about six to 12 hours, and then I got to go on it. Basically, it was free to go home. There were a bunch of restrictions as I wasn't a citizen, and, you know, coming in from the United States, I was at potentially at risk for COVID. And so I was required to install an app and report in on my temperature two times a day. And but yeah, so it's Yes, exactly. And my location was being monitored my phone. So there was sort of a upfront cost that I had to take to kind of make this just make the numbers that you see on television from from South Korea happen. So, but in the end, what I was doing, which is just basically staying at home wasn't different than what I was doing, um, before I left, and in a large way, because I was just staying at home regardless. Um, and the really nice thing was that we got sent a care package from the local Korean government. Wow, I have some pictures. And they're actually kind of ridiculous how much food they sent me. They sent me a solid two weeks of food to encourage me not to leave the house.

Anna Callahan:

Yeah. Even though we're tested in your test came back after one day. Did they ask you to stay indoors for two weeks? Or did they just give you two weeks worth of food and until you could go out?

Howard Kim:

No, it's a it was a requirement. So it's right. So people who walked around, there was I think, someone from Britain who walked around and Ashley had COVID. And he basically ignored the app requests and he was forced to leave the country as a result. So they were taking this very seriously, and then after. So this might sound a little bit, a little bit crazy, but they actually had one unannounced visit where they knocked on my door just to make sure that I was actually at home to make sure. So it might sound a little bit ridiculous, but at the same time that's, that's what everyone has been forced to stay at home now. Right? So and we mean here here in summer, yes, in the United States, so excuse me. Um, and now I can go out and I can walk around and I can basically do regular things. So it went out to

Anna Callahan:

two weeks of being a stay at home, you got tested, your test came back negative. Yes, you are at home for two weeks, maybe because there's some chance that you could have hadn't it hadn't hadn't shown up yet on the test. For whatever reason, you stayed home for two weeks? And after that time, now tell us what is your life like?

Howard Kim:

Okay, so after that time, I got tested again. And something that I glossed over was in that care package was not just food, but there are also masks there. Also, um, there was toilet paper, there was, um, hand sanitizer, basically all the necessities that you would need to stay at home for two weeks. So it wasn't uncomfortable. And I was staying at my parents house, which I chose, and you can basically pick your location.

Anna Callahan:

No, so it wasn't we're staying at your parents house? Did they have to stay home?

Howard Kim:

So my parents did not have to stay home. So the as long as they didn't come into close contact with me.

Anna Callahan:

Okay, great.

Howard Kim:

Yeah. So um, since then, life has been pretty much normal. So I'm way I go outside, I see about over 80 to 90% of people are wearing masks voluntarily on it is highly recommended. You see advertisements everywhere for public health, on television all the time. So people are definitely still conscientious about it. But for the most part life is going on. I think that even the movie theaters are open now. Which is really nice. Although, from what I heard, from my friends who actually did go to the movie theater, there are only three people there. And there were two stuff, that's they're still taking very seriously.

Anna Callahan:

Restaurant shops.

Howard Kim:

Yeah, they're they have the regular amount of people is what I would say the economy is took a hit, it took a hit the same as everyone else did. But it's, um, it hasn't ground to a halt. Unlike the traffic, which is now back to normal, and it's now very difficult to get anywhere by car, because people are basically out and about. And that's borne out by the numbers, which shows that for all of last week, the number of confirmed new cases a day was in single digits. And to put that in perspective, Korea was one of the worst hit countries by the outbreak when it first broke out. So now to shift from my personal perspective, where I kind of put in the cost that I had to do, which were honestly, we're not that severe. I'm putting an app in two times a day, stay home for two weeks, get tested, all for free, got free care package to kind of incentivize that. On the other end of that, I think at the, at the end of February, there were a couple of thousand cases, there was a large incident with a spreading incident where a lot of people got it all at the same time. So there was sort of a panic response mom type of deal where the the country didn't go into lockdown, people still went to work. But people were advised to wear masks and vice to hand sanitizer, and you would see hand sanitizer pretty much everywhere for free use in elevators at restaurants. And, um, and the number of cases dropped dramatically. And they had a very robust trace. And what's what's the word? What am I looking for? Basically a tracing program? Yeah, where anyone who had come into contact with a known PR firm case was on asked to stay at home for two weeks, just as I was on who has a high risk and then was given testing twice. And there they also implemented the, on the drive through the drive thru response, which is basically drive through testing, you could get tested in your car a lot, like a lot, like you know, getting a coffee from Starbucks or whatnot. And there would be basically no, um, no risk of exposure. And I think Can

Anna Callahan:

I ask you, like, Where is where does South Korea get all these tests? We cannot seem to get tests like do you you may not even know this, but why is there such a difference in the ability for people to to access test, then people like in Somerville, for example. Why can we not access test here?

Howard Kim:

So this is actually so there's a couple of reasons for this, I'm going to start with some things, I absolutely know for sure, and then step into things that are less confirmed, but still, probably true. So for sure is that on Korea was exposed to a exponential exponential respiratory virus in the past. It had SARS in the early 2000s. And then MERS, again, more recently in about around 2016. And so the public consciousness and the government was kind of warned that this was coming, like in a very serious way, I think 60 people died from MERS back in 2016, which may not sound like a lot. But when you're dealing with an exponentially growing arm virus as the way that these things are, that is potentially very scary. Um, and so the public health response has been very, has taken this seriously and has had a lot of testing scenarios in place, and in a way that the USA has not to move to. So that's why Korea has done very well, in this regard. While the US has done so poorly is, I think a little bit more controversial, but a very large part of it, I think, has just been the federal federal response. So from what I understand, in early February, late March, the US government was actually offered a test that was developed internationally, for sure. Yeah, from Germany. And it was turned down, um, the reasons for which are unclear, but seem to lead to what is the private health insurance company or private health companies looking to use their own testing to, to help benefit themselves at the potential cost of the public? And so I think that is whether or not that all of that is exactly as I said, it isn't clear. But it does seem to be that the US has a habit of prioritizing private industries, rather than the public health at large. And that's something that I think that it's we're seeing right now, what effect that can have on communities and people and lives. And I think that that is something that really needs to change. I'm I'm don't think at all that Korean Korean political system is perfect. I think that it has. It's a real country the same as everyone else. If you talk to people, they have the same problems with that everyone has with their local politics and their their country's politics. But at the same time, I feel like there's a level of trust in the government and more, more abstractly in science in general, to provide answers. And And generally, if people say, if people hear on the news, science suggests that you should do X, because it is best for you, and it's going to keep you safe. People will generally abide by that. Um, I'm not sure. Yeah.

Anna Callahan:

Can I ask south to South Korea has a national healthcare system?

Howard Kim:

Yes, it absolutely does. Um, it has basically the equivalent of Medicare for all, in which everyone is on a government issued home health plan. So there, there are no private options, as it were, I know that South Korea is, um, have actually have all of the world's developed countries, I can think of very few besides the United States that don't have a public health care policy. And I think that, that shows when private and public interests collide. And I think that that's really shown in the us today. So I don't know if that's a little too on the nose. But, but to like, if you look at the numbers, it's really quite striking. Right? So Incheon International Airport, which is 300,000 people, um, excuse me, which is a major international hub, um, took in 300,000 travelers from in the march in the month of March. Wow. And not a single arm equivalent of their TSA. And of those employees, not a single one of them has have contracted COVID. Wow. Which is, which is crazy. Like, a lot. Every single person I interacted with that was on staff was wearing pp. M was wearing a mask that people who are doing the testing or veered off from head to toe in what looks like a hazmat look like an Astro So basically, they were just they just took it seriously because they had seen what the power of exponential growth. And just because you can't see it right now doesn't mean that it's not a threat. And they didn't wait until they saw people getting sick to take it seriously, I think is the other thing.

Anna Callahan:

Wow, that is such an amazing story. And I'm so glad that you started with a personal story of your own experience living in Somerville. And I had not realized that you were here, when COVID started, and he decided to go to South Korea, knowing that the South Korean reaction to this was going to be much better was much better. And that you would be both safer, and more free to go about your normal daily life in South Korea than here.

Howard Kim:

Yeah, so I'm actually wanted to touch on that point a little bit. Um, I think I saw a headline recently that somebody said something about South Korea not really being free, because it's tracking people for all of these things. I mean, you can say that, but first of all, your phone is probably already tracking you already. And by probably, I mean, it's tracking you already. So that's the unfortunate truth of it. Second, is that I had to install an app by the government, but I could not install it after that's it that was over. So it's not like I'm being tracked any more than usual after the kind of risk period was over. Um, and third is that I feel a lot freer right now than I did in the United States. I'm very, very lucky, I don't want to stress that enough that I had the, the ability to, to work in a field where I can wait don't have to show up where I can work remotely. And

Anna Callahan:

inseparable, you would be forced to work remotely anyway, like you would still be having to work remotely. Right now.

Howard Kim:

Right? Um, so and that's because we need to, but we needed to a month ago and a month and a half ago, as well, we just didn't see it yet. We We pretended that the problem was going to go away. And that's obviously not good public policy. Because the problem is not going to go away on it still, it's whether it's going to be with us for the next couple months, or the next over a year remains to be seen. But, um,

Anna Callahan:

but South Korea's response sounds like it's just a lot more sustainable than ours, because you guys are going about mostly about your normal business. But with the testing and tracing program, that they have the contact tracing program, they can contain it very well, while most people are kind of going about their daily lives, and and the economy is not under a huge hit. Does that sound about right?

Howard Kim:

Yeah. And people are really encouraged to get testing as much as possible. So testing costs, roughly the equivalent of I think it's 140 US dollars. So it's not the cheapest thing in the world. But first, you can get them. And second, if you test positive, it's free. Right. So it's subsidized by the government. And I think about right now in the United States, I saw tests being put out there for about two to $3,000 is what I is that incorrect?

Anna Callahan:

I don't know. Well, well, the check. I really have no idea. We'll check on that.

Madeleine Clarke:

Me, Jeremy us for medical things cost ridiculous amounts

Unknown:

of money.

Howard Kim:

Yeah, but at the same time, I've heard that the the testing kits are not very accurate. I've heard that they have a 20 to 30% false negative rate,

Anna Callahan:

which is South Korean ones or you

Howard Kim:

know, not the South Korean ones, the United States ones. The South Korean ones have a false negative rate of, I believe 5%. So it's not zero, but it's it's much better. Um, now we

Anna Callahan:

get to our experts will ask about about that. Yeah, about that here as well.

Howard Kim:

Yeah. I'm, again, I'm definitely not an expert on the medical side of things. But yeah, I'm from what I can see on the ground. It's it's really night and day, the difference.

Anna Callahan:

So amazing. So we have something to look forward to. We can get life back to normal and keep this thing under control. So it has been really eye opening to talk to you. I appreciate you coming on so much. And I have to say it is kind of amazing that your skype feed is like great. half a world away from us. So good job Skype. So yeah, thank you so much. Do you have any last any final words before before we let you go?

Howard Kim:

Um... not really thank you so much for having me on. It was a pleasure to be here.

Anna Callahan:

Really, really fascinating to hear about what life is like there for you right now. And I hope we get there soon. Thank you. So much. Great to talk to you.

Howard Kim:

Thank you. Bye.

Anna Callahan:

Yeah, thank you. So that is it for our show. Thank you, everyone, for tuning in. I hope it was everything that you dreamed of. And we will be back next week with more stories and questions from our community, with more experts to talk about those issues and with more ways that you, as a member of our community can plug in and how we can solve these problems together. Thank you so much.

Introduction
The Welcome Project
Tufts Mutual Aid
Life in South Korea under Covid-19