The 12th Session of the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly of the DPRK held in mid-January discussed the fulfilment of the previous year’s state budget and the state budget for this year.

The meeting declared that a large sum of money would be sent as educational aid fund and stipends to Chongryon (General Association of Korean Residents in Japan founded on May 25, 1955) so that the children of Korean residents in Japan could grow up as reserves of the overseas citizens of the DPRK, who would carry forward the tradition of patriotic loyalty generation after generation despite harsh difficulties.

In April the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un sent Chongryon educational aid fund and stipends amounting to 287.02 million Japanese yen for the democratic national education of the children of Koreans in Japan on the occasion of the 113th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung (April 15, 1912-July 8, 1994).

The educational aid funds and stipends sent by the state on 171 occasions since 1957 total 49 988 590 390 yen.

Everything changes with the lapse of time, but the DPRK has never failed to send educational aid fund and stipends for its sons and daughters in the foreign country.

On April 19, 1957 the Korean residents across Japan were overjoyed to receive the first educational aid fund and stipends to the tune of over 120 million yen sent by their homeland.

But at that time there were not many who knew how the educational aid fund and stipends came.

Examining the draft state budget at the plenary meeting of the Cabinet held in Pyongyang in late January that year, Kim Il Sung said: We must send money to our compatriots in Japan who are experiencing difficulties in educating their children, even though it would mean that we could not build more factories. We mustn’t stop after sending them once or twice. We must continue to send as long as there are our compatriots and their children to be educated in Japan.

This is how a new item of Educational Aid Fund and Stipends for the Children of the Koreans in Japan was included in the state budget.

Those days the economic situation of the country was indescribably difficult.

The year 1957 was the first year of the First Five-year Plan after successful fulfilment of the post-war reconstruction. The country faced an acute shortage of funds, raw materials and manpower, as compared to the huge tasks it should carry out.

However, Kim Il Sung decided that a huge amount of money should be allocated to the children of Koreans in Japan despite all difficulties.

In the days when all the Korean communities in Japan were filled with great excitement, Han Tok Su, the then chairman of the Central Standing Committee of Chongryon, composed a song “Warm Is the Love of the Motherland,” saying that he had never dreamed that the homeland would send money as the fellow people in the homeland had to tighten their belts to accelerate the postwar reconstruction.

The song is still widely sung by the Korean compatriots.

The first aid fund and stipends were spent on erecting a new building of Korea University and teaching nearly 100 000 Korean children their native language.

Chairman Kim Jong Il (February 16, 1942-December 17, 2011) used to say that he wanted to send all the wealth of the country to Chongryon for the education of its rising generations and that sending educational aid fund and stipends to Chongryon is, by nature, different from investment in economic sectors.

In December 1994 he instructed that the system and tradition established by President Kim Il Sung should be faithfully carried on and that the educational aid fund and stipends should be sent just like when the President was alive, without changing the period or deducting the amount.

The history of sending educational aid fund and stipends continues invariably under the warm care of the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un .

Thanks to the warm affection of Kim Jong Un , who is making devoted efforts to firmly preparing the new generation of Chongryon who will carry on the lifeblood of the movement of Koreans in Japan, they are soundly growing up as the pillars who are invariably carrying forward the baton of its patriotic work.

Yon Ok