What we do and why

Our holistic support enables escaped North Korean people to overcome the many barriers that prevent them from building new lives.

We enable freedom

We are a UK-based organisation with a global aim: To enable every person who has escaped North Korea, to heal, grow, and live the life they choose.

Our holistic support programmes enable escaped North Korean people to overcome the many barriers that prevent them from building new lives after their escape from the oppressive North Korean regime.

By breaking the cycle of subsistence

Many people who manage to escape North Korea risk their lives, and leave those they love, only to find themselves trapped in a cycle of subsistence, without the freedoms they dreamed of.

Lack of qualifications, language and job skills, lack of confidence, and mental health problems are all factors that contribute to them becoming trapped in low-paid work, where the possibility of finding fees, or time, to study, to improve their situation, is slim or non-existent.

Enabling North Korean people to develop new skills

Enabling escaped North Korean people to develop new skills is key to them being able to access and make use of their new freedoms.

Those skills create avenues to a career, financial security, and better wellbeing for people who have managed to escape from North Korea, and enable them to access something they have never had – the freedom to choose.

Our aim is not just to elevate North Korean people out of poverty, but to transform their prospects, enabling them to have the choice to take a certain job, the choice to travel, the choice to make new friends.

These are choices everyone deserves, and they feel all the more important for people whose human rights have been abused, and whose choices and opportunities have been so drastically limited.

Empowering escaped North Korean people wherever they settle in the world

With hundreds or thousands of North Korean people arriving in new countries every year, a lack of holistic support must be addressed – and rolled out internationally – to ensure an end to the ongoing cycle of poverty and misery faced by so many escapees and their children.

Our programmes are designed to empower North Korean people to improve their own lives, and support other North Korean people to do the same, so all escaped North Korean people can live the lives they choose wherever they settle in the world.

Our support and development programmes

Enabling Freedom

Enabling Freedom provides the holistic educational, well-being, and financial support North Korean people need to gain recognised vocational and professional qualifications, work towards their dreams and potential, and choose the lives they want to live.

Enabling Resilience

This programme supports North Korean people with the recovery of their mental health, so they can overcome the day-to-day barriers they face in their efforts to build new lives. It ensures people have the support they need to complete the Enabling Freedom programme.

Enabling Freedom Network

The Enabling Freedom Network programme is a world-first social leadership and scholarship scheme, designed to enhance the education and leadership skills of North Korean escapee change-makers.