Jiwoo (Katie) Choi is a junior at Jericho Senior High School. As a Korean citizen who is deeply invested in North Korean human rights, she wants to support North Korean escapees and help raise awareness of the seriousness of the human rights situation through her internship at HRNK.

She first came across North Korean issues through YouTube videos that discussed the everyday life of the North Korean people. Her interest in North Korea deepened after she attended a seminar at Columbia Law School, hosted by the Permanent Mission of the ROK to the UN, on the topic of North Korea’s nuclear program and human rights abuses. Inspired by this seminar, she wrote an essay that compared the corruption levels of North and South Korea and argued that the abject poverty that North Koreans face gives rise to a vicious cycle of deprivation, corruption, and repression.

She hopes to learn more about various aspects of the situation in North Korea, including poverty, corruption, humanitarian aid, and the freedom of expression. This will inform her personal efforts in her community to help improve the human rights situation in North Korea.