Groups Team Up to Turn Around Troubled Lives in Koreatown

Nanoom Christian Fellowship residents get up at 6:30 a.m., hike for 90 minutes before breakfast, and do devotions as part of their daily effort to turn around their lives.

Drug addiction, family violence or gang-related problems have brought the 70 participants to the Koreatown rehabilitation facility.

And their yearning to turn away from those things keeps them there for the minium six-month stay.

“It’s the other side of the [Korean] community that people don’t see,” said the Rev. Young-Il Kim, founding president of Nanoom. The Korean Youth and Community Center, a well-known secular nonprofit organization, and Nanoom, whose mission is to help transform lives through faith in Christ, have teamed up to help motivate residents and teach them job skills.

David Kang, an employment specialist at the center, says life can be difficult for young Korean Americans who don’t measure up to family and community expectations because they’re ostracized.

Korean Americans like to project an image of a “model minority” and want their children to attend top colleges and become successful professionals, but often their children fall short of these goals, Kang said.

In their first collaboration two weeks ago, staffers from the Korean Youth and Community Center had the first of three two-hour workshops for about 30 Nanoom residents, mostly in their teens and 20s.

The center’s Youth Skills program is supported with the help of a $15,000 grant from the Los Angeles Times Holiday Campaign, which raises money for nonprofit agencies in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties.

During the session, team leaders Kang and Carlos Soh, a youth advocate, asked participants to visualize where they hoped to be in 10 years and set both short- and long-term goals for themselves.

“I want to be a narc,” said Cecilia, who described her recent life as one of turmoil -- estranged from her family, in and out of boarding facilities and, for a time, living on the street because of her addiction to crack and methamphetamine.

“If you want to be a narc, you have to pass the requirements,” said Soh, who recommended getting a college education.

But her problem, Cecilia said, is that she thinks about drugs all the time.

“You have to fight off the craving every day,” Kang said. “Life has so much more to offer than drugs.”

Most Nanoom residents are there to satisfy court-mandated requirements of their probation that include counseling, tutoring in reading, job training and life-skills development, according to Susan Lee, director of Children and Family Services at the Korean Youth and Community Center.

When Brook said she wanted to pursue an acting career, Kang told her, “It’s dog-eat-dog out there, especially in the entertainment industry.”

But, like everything else in life, he said, you need to prepare yourself by getting an education. “Education is like yak,” he said, using the Korean word for medicine.

Hearing the familiar term, some of the residents chuckled.

Eddie said his short-term goal is kicking a marijuana habit, and long-term goal is becoming a mechanic and owner of a body shop.

“You’ve got to keep yourself busy,” Kang said.

“I see a lot of potential in you guys.”

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