Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Peru

Bora Yun Moon, M.A. Candidate in Latin American Studies

I would like to give many thanks to the deen of GSIAS,Won-ho Kim, and he also is the professor of my major (Latin American studies) , because he gave me a lot of support and encouragement to have experience in Latin America. The reason why I choosed Peru was this country is really active in connection with social science studies, and furthermore, I’ve been very interested in the socio-economic situation in Peru. The experience I had in this country was unforgettable for whole my life. I’ve never gone to Latin America before, so I went to this continent with great expectations. Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú is the best university in Peru, so there were only the students with the passion for academic study. The master’s class I took was ‘Ciudadanía, Estado y PolíticasPúblicas’ that dealt with significant processes ofdemocratizationandexpansionofpolitical, socialand civil rights, the persistence of deeppatternsofin equality between different social groupsremains oneofits structural features.And after debating intensively in every each class with different themes and case studies, I had to make a public politics of Peru. It was not easy for me to do that, but I could learn a lot through this hard class. What I was really impressed was that the students of the classes were sociologist, economist and high public official, etc. They are already have sufficient experience and academic knowledge, and I had the great chance to debate with them and to exchange the idea in what we were interested.

Apart from the master class, I worked as a volunteer in the non-governmental organization (NGO) ‘MundeLibre’ where works with the children have a problem with a family and drugs. Peru has many social problems with high inequality, vulnerability and high gap between rich and poor,etc. For these reasons, many children work in the street to sell some candy and to beg , naturally they are exposed to drugs and violence. So the NGO brings the children who don’t have any protection from society neither their family. My work was to give a class of mathematics and artwith the aim to reeducate, Iliked my work very much in there because I will work in INGO in the future, besides I could have the real experience related to my academic studies. I strongly recommend you to take the opportunity (3+1) to study in the local place related to your study or your interest, because you can have the real experience which is completely different from what can learn with books.