Support North Korean Defector to Achieve Mission!

My name is Cherie Yang. I'm a North Korean refugee who came to the U.S in search of freedom. When my family and I escape from North Korea, we left everything behind. We had absolutely nothing. We couldn't bring even a single-family photo. My family and I spent 3 years living in China. Living in China as an illegal immigrant is extremely dangerous. If we send back to North Korea, we will get killed or send to concentration camps, which you will be treated worse than an animal. So our family chose to left China to Thailand in search of freedom. However, sadly I lost my father during an arduous journey to find freedom. He died in Laos and buried in the Mekong river.  And after my mom. my sister and I immigrated to America, I was a  busy survivor adjusting to a new society. Then my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer last year 2021 and once again a great darkness came upon my life. After leaving North Korea, losing my father was the saddest and most difficult time in my life. When I found out my mother had cancer, my world was shattered once again. But thanks to your help, my mother had surgery in time and now she's cancer free. You saved the most precious person in my life. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart!

 

Now I am about to write a new chapter of my life. I want to start my own dietary supplements business called Avec Nature. This business is naturally inspired by my mom's arduous journey in her fight against breast cancer and the help that you all provided me.

 

My mom's diagnosis made me realize that the best gift we could give to ourselves and our loved ones is the gift of a good health. When we take care of our health, we do it for ourselves and our family. It was a dark time seeing my mother sick. When you realize that there is nothing you can do to help someone you love, it feels miserable. That feeling was exactly what I had at that time. I felt useless. I was alarmed and when I was losing hope, you gave me hope. The hope you gave me was like a beam of light to me who was walking through the tunnel in the dark. Because of you, my mom is cancer free and my family is happy again. Your help inspired me to become a person who could give hope to others in need. And this thought has led me to become interested in improving health. Being able to help people stay healthy will impact not only their lives, but also the lives of their family just like you all impacted mine, my sister’s and my mom’s. Therefore, doing this in the area of health would mean the world to me.

 

As an immigrant coming from a poor country, I have recognized a common problem between rich and poor countries. In both countries, people are lack of nutrition. In poor countries like North Korea, people suffer from malnutrition because of food shortages. In rich countries like America where food is abundant, people still lack nutrition because of bad eating habits and we don’t get enough nutrients from food as we used to. Here in the United States, my 12-year-old niece refuses to eat the same food more than twice and does not like vegetables. When I look at her leftover food, I always think of North Korean children. A lot of North Korean children starve to death because there is no food to fill their small stomachs. My niece's leftover food would have been a blessing to them. If there was food waste like that in North Korea, the children wouldn't have starved to death.

 

Then, what about the children who survived the hunger? They suffer from severe malnutrition. North Korea is a poor country. Children can't eat all kinds of vegetables, fruits and meats like they do here. The everyday meal for the children in North Korea is only watery soup with cabbage kimchi or radish pickles. Only children from decent houses can eat rice every day and boiled eggs once in a while. As a result, North Korean children are very short and skinny. Their legs are as thin as bird's legs. The North Korean regime recognizes the seriousness of malnutrition in children and recommends drinking a lot of soy milk to supplement protein. However, this advice is nonsense. The regime recommends this because they have no idea how ordinary North Koreans live every day. Ordinary people’s lives are miserable. Their daily concern is how to provide watery soup to their children. They will be grateful if they can eat watery soup every day. Therefore, drinking a lot of Soybean milk is unthinkable to them. But this is not the only problem that North Korean people face. This problem is experienced in Africa and many other countries.

 

So, my mission is to solve the problem that both, people in well-off countries and in poor countries face with my meal substitute supplements. This product aims to provide benefits such as healthy weight, immunity, energy, antioxidants, digestion and many more. I hope this product from Avec Nature will help people from well-off countries maintain good health, and at the same time, I hope it will be a lifesaver for people in poor countries. However, the dietary supplement industry has high barriers to entry. This industry requires huge initial costs and competition with strongly branded products. So in order to achieve my mission, I need your help.

 

My goal is to raise $70,000 to cover some of the initial costs. The funding will cover product development, product testing, certification, insurance, and graphic design, packaging cost and leasing small space of warehouse.

 

According to a United Nations report, 690 million people regularly go to bed hungry and it will exceed 840 million people by 2030. If 840 million people or more are on the verge of suffering from hunger, nutritional problems will increase alongside the hunger problems. People will continue to be undernourished. I intend to provide some hope through my meal substitute product from Avec Nature. I hope it will be an open opportunity and a chance at life in places where starvation and malnutrition has become the norm.

 

But I can only get the business off the ground with your help. Your support will go a long way to help me accomplish my mission and like you provided hope for my family, I want to give your light back to people in need. I am positive that with your support, I would be able to do this. Every little contribution will be a huge help to me and thank you so much for supporting me to accomplish my mission!

Gofundme fundraising video: https://youtu.be/4BJSZgRsmCo

Cherie Yang's Youtube: https://youtu.be/ZGjZJqlDhps