In October 2018, our president, Alex Lim, visited Durihana International School and Church, a boarding school in Seoul that rescues, houses, and teaches refugee youth from North Korea.

There, he met 22 teenage North Korean refugees and learned of their tragic yet inspiring stories of their journey to freedom.

Alex recognized the hardships these children had gone through and the difficulty they still faced in their new home: the difficulty of fitting in and assimilating to an entirely new society.  

As a cellist himself, Alex saw the opportunity to build a musical bridge.  He knew of the community that an orchestra can create and the sense of pride and worth that comes with learning and mastering a skill.

On October 15, 2018, Youth Orchestra Without Borders was declared and began providing instrument lessons, recreational activities, mentorship, and meals.  

The following summer, YOWB conducted its first annual concert at Seoul International Art Hall.  Alex Lim attended this concert with friends from the international boarding school that he attended in America.  After witnessing YOWB perform, his friends were inspired to join the cause, and the U.S. fundraising chapter was born.

In the summer of 2022, we held our first Annual Fundraiser Gala in New York City as an opportunity to reunite with friends and spread YOWB’s mission across our network. Since then, the event has grown and improved each year, helping to inspire in others what was inspired in us when we first saw YOWB perform in 2019.

In August 2023, we found Chun Ki-won, principal at Durihana School and pastor at the Church, widely regarded as a hero and dubbed the ‘Korean Schindler’, interacting inappropriately with some of the young girls.  

As soon as we discovered this, we notified the police and made sure all of Durihana’s students were safe and far from the school until Ki-won was prosecuted and jailed.  

As terrible as he was, Ki-won was single-handedly keeping Durihana afloat.  With him locked away, Durihana was going under, and these kids would have likely been split up and spread across foster care facilities, not specialized for refugees.

Instead, YOWB assumed all responsibilities of the Durihana School immediately.

Today, we operate as an all-encompassing boarding school for North Korean refugee children, providing meals, K-12 education, after-school activities, housing, mental health counseling, college admissions support, professional development, and, of course, music lessons.

To date, we have helped over 100 students find their place in South Korea. We currently have X students with 22 serving as core members in the Orchestra. 13 of our students are currently studying at Universities. Our 4 oldest graduates have finished university and landed jobs in fields ranging from medicine to education to music.