Help a Teacher in Need

2009 October 26: Teacher in Need(Gyeonggido, South Korea)—

The Association for Teachers of English in Korea (ATEK)is calling on it's members and all in the English teaching community of Korea to help outa fellow teacher in need.

Kenneth Hash, 46, is a US citizen who has been in Korea for almost 12 years and iscurrently working at a middle school in Namdae.In August of this year Ken was unfortunate enough to get an insect bite which caused amassive leg infection that required several surgeries and still to this day requires weeklytreatments. Ken’s hospitalization lasted for almost a month.

While Ken was hospitalized his school informed him that he would be fired if he did notreturn to work no later than September 11th, 2009 and that he would not be paid for partor all of the time he was hospitalized. The doctors wanted Ken to remain in the hospitaluntil September 18th, 2009 at the earliest.

His school managed to convince the doctors to release him early so they could put himback to work. Due to this early release Ken’s illness and treatment are still ongoing andhe has endured several complications due to not receiving proper levels of care andtreatment.

Because of the seriousness of his illness and the treatment methods required Ken’s out ofpocket (after insurance) medical bills have surpassed 3,000,000KRW. This has placed ahuge burden on him both mentally and financially, which has only been exacerbated bythe actions of his school.To pay the expenses for his treatment Ken has been forced to sell everything he owns andto borrow money from his co-teachers just to be allowed to leave the hospital.

ATEKwould like to ask not only it's members but everyone in the foreign teaching communityto make a donation: Even a small amount, such as 25,000 KRW or W50,000 KRW wouldgo a long way to helping Ken out, although larger donations are obviously welcome too.

Please remember that this tragic situation could have easily happened to any of us.Contributions can be made directly to Ken via direct deposit to his bank account atNongHyup Bank.

The account number is (two, three, five, zero) 8952 (zero zero six) 259. To contribute simply take this information (the name and bank account number) to your bank and ask them totransfer whatever amount you wish to contribute or alternatively transfer the money viaan ATM.

In the meantime ATEK will continue to monitor the situation and do everything we canto help Ken in these difficult times.Any inquiries on this matter may be made directly to John Wurth, Gyeonggido ATEKCouncil Chair, at

[wurthjt] --at-- yahoo [dot] (com).

--credit Dann Gaymer, press secretary but any errors in this blog post are mine.

Please repost! --DB