Purpose and necessity of the proiect
The purpose of the project is to prepare for unification by building up leadership capacity with global perspectives and broad mind set among North Korean defectors and South Koreans in the age groups of 20's and 30t. We believe that this project is critically needed in view of the following;

(a) having a practical understanding of key principles about the American history and society will be not a luxury but a necessity given the central role of the U.S. in realizing the Korean unification;
(b) gaining perspectives  on how the North Korean issues are viewed in the U.S. in the heart of the American politics is an invaluable experience;
(c) gaining an understanding about how global systems work through visits (working sessions, not just group tours) to international organizations will enable the participants broaden their global perspectives;
(d) gaining an understanding about different ways in which human rights issues play(ed) out in different countries, especially the U.S., will also be an important learning experience;
(e) North Korean defectors who attend colleges in the RoK are often referred to as the "unification arrived early". A relatively small pool of a few hundreds of them are believed to be offered many opportunities for overseas trips but most such trips tend to go barely beyond the scope of a one-time event with limited educational elements;
(f) a systematic approach to building knowledge base and leadership capacity to develop "unification leaders" is in serious need; and
(S) this project attempts to provide the foundation level of such a systematic approach referred to in 
(f) above.

Target and impact of the project
The target of this project includes North Korean defectors who study at colleges and graduate schools in the RoK and RoK college students in their 20's and 30's. We hope that this project will provide the participants with a major turning point in their lives. ihe participants with have an opportunity to learn about the background to and principles of the founding of America, its constitution, the American government system, global systems and issues, as well as the U.S. views on North Korea and the Korean peninsula along with experiencing the American society and culture. We also hope that this project will motivate the participants for developing careers as professionals in various fields, preferably in international scenes, and for thinking about how specifically they could start preparing themselves as leaders for unification process and the post-unification reintegration of the people of North and South Korea. We will continue to assist them in that search through nurturing of the WLP alumni association and networking among the alumni.
Visible impact of this program thus far can be summarized as below:

1.   One WLP alumnus won the English speech contest held by TNKR (Teach North Korean Refugees) (in 2016) and another won an award (in 2017);
2.    Four WLP alumni have been selected (in 2014, 2015, 2017 & 2018) for the U.S. State Department-funded English study prroggraam (tthee UGrad Program);
3.   One alumnus was selected for theeRRoKK ggovevernn ment funded WEST program (Work, English, Study and Travel) in 2018;
4.   Three WLP alumni have been selected for the Open Society Foundations' scholarships for graduate studies thus far (for North Korean defector students only);
5. One WLP alumnus (2015) was selected for the newly launched (in 2017) Korean Fulbright Scholarship Program to study for an MBA degree in the U.S. (the student started his MBA program in August 2018);
6.    One alumnus (2015) was recently hired by the KEB-Hana Bank through a competitive process.
7.   One alumnus (2014) was selected for the British government's scholarship (the Chevening Program) and started her graduate study in the fall of 2018.

With regards to the invisible impact, participants of this program have a unique opportunity to build life-long friendship and networking base for their future professional activities. All South Korean participants of this project in the past 6 years have stated emphatically what an invaluable opportunity it was for them to spend such close time together with North Korean defectors. Most 
South Korean participants had never met a North Korean defector until they joined this program and the emotional bonding some participants experienced through this project has been exceptional. We believe that this unique network could play an important role in building the WLP alumni's ability to become the bridge between the North and South in the process of unification. We hope that 15, 20 years from now, many WLP alumni will become distinguished professionals and leaders in the public sector, international development, academia, business, as well as community development with global understanding and broad mind set to make meaningful contributions to establishing a new society for unified Korean peninsula. We sincerely hope also that they would say that attending the WLP was the defining moment in their lives that enabled them to grow into the professionals and leaders that they would become.