I’m a Chinese student and I want to help those North Korean refugees because your reporting really struck me. Could you please give me some advice on how I might help them?

From my humble experience in doing humanitarian work and deal with human rights issues in China, I have a few sparks of ideas right now on how I might be able to help, but I’d love to hear your suggestions. Because of the risk involves here, I would really appreciate if you could kindly reply to my email. Thank you, and thank you very much for this great reporting – it’s an opening-eye experience watching it! I wish you in best in coming adventures!

peace and love,

ella

I’m sure between your personal life, The Beagle Campaign as well as any other projects you are working on you have more then enough to keep you busy, but thank you for always going out of your way to try to answer all our questions we appreciate it and I’m sure everyone else does as well. But you won’t have to worry about answering any of our (my husband and I) silly questions for a while we know your busy.

Just wanted to let you know that your marathon through the Sahara has inspired us to make a donation to The National Lupus Foundation in honor of myself as well as other Lupus sufferers that may not be as lucky as me. It’s such a worthy cause I wish I could do more.

Well be sure to check in every now and then and let us know your still alive and share with us any current projects that you are working on. Also we’ve been following the Beagle Campaign a little, good luck with your meeting with the RGS in May, be sure to post the result of that meeting on one of your sites.

Looking forward to the next Tribe series…..Take care and be safe.

Glad to see you responding to questions, reading your blog makes my commute to the city a lot quicker keep it coming.
I wanted to say thank you very much for doing what you do. Olly, you do make a difference in peoples lives more than you will ever know.
I do not know you personally but I feel you do what you do not for the money or for fame but because you want to help others and feed your soul at the same time.
Jackie Robinson (a famous baseball player) said (not sure if I quoted him correcty) “A single life is not as important as much as the impact it has on ther peoples lives” There are very few people who are blessed with such a gift. I hope you keep on giving.
Olly, can you let us know what is next in your professional life? I am still waiting to find out if the DVD will be out for the Machigenga.
I am going to London next month and I may be the one who recognizes you on the street.

Wishing you health, happiness, love & wealth
Reena

Risks? Security? (Angela and others) Yes, we were fully aware of the risks as before making a film like this, we have to conduct a thorough risk assessments before departure, evaluating all possible risks, speaking to primary sources who have had experience of the dangers and working out how to mitigate against those possibilities. This process truly helps focus the mind and drill deeper into the issues we were investigating. From the beginning we realised that the risks to us could be managed but the major danger lay for our North Korean contacts, and what could happen to them if our failures alerted local bounty hunters or authorities to them. Our whole filming approach was designed towards the security of our contacts. Thankfully we succeeded.

Angela: friends and family think of what I do? Well I think they are worried for me, but understand and accept that reporting on issues, raising awareness on the plight of North Koreans and others is important to do….

Mike: changing status of North Koreans in China: I first heard about this through a Japanese based NGO: North Korean Refugees: http://www.northkoreanrefugees.com/2009-03-china-change.htm who said that “the Chinese Human Rights Research Committee, which has strong ties with the government, unveiled its plan in a meeting of a national organization of which the deputy chairman of the Chinese National Convention is also a member. The plan, entitled “North Koreans in China: Plan for the Resolution of the Korean Issue,” stated that the following people would be granted legal resident status: 1) North Korean women who have been married to a Chinese man for more than three years, who have a child, and who have been living in a law-abiding manner. North Korean women who live with relatives in China, who could not support themselves if repatriated, and who express a strong desire to remain in China. 2) A North Korean who once was a Chinese citizen1, or whose parents were Chinese citizens, who has returned to China to live”.
HOWEVER: this it should be noted, as explained in the film, that this is ONLY a plan and as such does not represent a change in policy or approach by the Chinese government. A number of these ‘plans’ are often put around and opened for discussion.

2 American Journalists: obviously our hearts go out to them and their families and this horrendous time. I think many people are trying to keep this out of the press at the moment to ensure the situation doesn’t escalate further and the women are not used as political pawns in some sort of diplomatic spat. I have every faith that the North Korean government will release them and hopefully soon.

Lissa: Why China? Simply curiosity at first – because when I was a kid, I learned of this mad place on the other side of the world with hundreds of millions of people in and everyone I asked about it, always said that same thing and it was clear that no one really had a clue. So then I visited it in mid-90s and thought that it would be the place and people who would really affect the changing world during my lifetime, so figured I’d better learn as much about the place as possible – I studied at the People’s University in Beijing as part of my degree and have subsequently lived and worked on and off in China for the past 10 years. Beijing has become my second home, and like home, I now have a love-hate relationship with the place!

Julie: Any solutions? This is the perennial problem with journalism – does it really make a difference, and if it doesn’t should we bother? I really don’t know the answer to this. Whilst making this film, it was the first time that these questions really struck home – it’s something that you debate and question but it only really made sense when I was putting people’s lives in danger. Is it worth it? I hope so. Advocacy groups say that raising awareness on issues like this, can benefit their work in the short term and long-term as they try and engage public policy initiatives to improve the world. I believe we can all make a difference, life is about choices and if it affects one person who watches the film to do something positive, then that is a good thing.

lissa: compensation? did we compensate the people we were working with? We have very strict guidelines for reporting with Channel 4 that we should never pay someone for an interview. But obviously when meeting all these people suffering such horror, it is incredibly difficult not to want to do something to help them. On completion of the film, I and members of the crew did certain things to help them and offer support. It’s a touchy subject but this is all I can really say about it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8015730.stm

(I stink at hyperlinks so I hope this worked)

Sara M