This picture taken on Apreleased from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on April 16 shows an evening party for young students celebrating the birthday of their country's founder and Eternal President Kim Il Sung, at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang. The poster reads вЂњThe great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung will always be with us. Women walk in a street near the Arch of Triumph on the Day of the Sun, the birth anniversary of late leader Kim Il Sung, in Pyongyang, North Korea Thursday, April 15, 2021. (Photo by Cha Song Ho/AP Photo)ДЄ man and a woman walk in a street on the Day of the Sun, the birth anniversary of late leader Kim Il Sung, in Pyongyang, North Korea Thursday, April 15, 2021. North Korean army officers visit the Mansu Hill on the occasion of the Day of the Sun, the birth anniversary of late leader Kim Il Sung, in Pyongyang, North Korea Thursday, April 15, 2021. Women dance near the Arch of Triumph on the Day of the Sun, the birth anniversary of late leader Kim Il Sung, in Pyongyang, North Korea Thursday, April 15, 2021. People visit the statues of their late leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il on the occasion of the Day of the Sun, the birth anniversary of Kim Il Sung, in Pyongyang, North Korea Thursday, April 15, 2021. People walk in a street near the Arch of Triumph on the Day of the Sun, the birth anniversary of late leader Kim Il Sung, in Pyongyang, North Korea Thursday, April 15, 2021. (Photo by Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP Photo)ДЄn employee monitors a cookie conveyor belt at the Unha Taesong Foodstuff Factory Tuesday, April 6, 2021, in Pyongyang, North Korea. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. She currently manages the Hong Kong-based KorAid Limited, an NGO she established in 2015 to focus on serving children in institutions and people with disabilities in North Korea and in China.ДЄll the revenues of the evening were donated by Asia Society Switzerland toВ KorAid.In this photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, attends a meeting with senior ruling party officials in Pyongyang, Monday, June 7, 2021. Focusing on sustainable agriculture and education exchanges, she gained a unique insight into humanitarian questions and security politics in North Korea. She was based in Pyongyang for five years (2006-2011) as the North Korea country director for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), an office of the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Katharina ZellwegerВ is a senior aid manager with over 30 years of field experience in Hong Kong, China and North Korea. But we have goneВ waybeyond that.В» Instead of achieving their goal, which is to get the North Korean government to give up its nuclear missile program, they led to a more difficult situation for the poor, because it is not only harder to do business at all, it is also harder for the welfare humanitarian aid agencies. Katharina Zellweger emphasized the critical role of the sanctions for the North Korean people: В«I am not totally against sanctions, if they are targeted sanctions. В«The situation has modestly improved in recent years,В» she mentioned and added, that there are playgrounds, initiated by Kim Jong-Un, there are mobile phones, which improved communication inside North Korea at least, and there are restaurants. So, like this, the North Korean government acted as an enabler for freedom to do things, said Katharina Zellweger. The economic opening came about mostly through sheer necessity: after the famine in the 1990s and increased sanctions, the state was just not capable anymore of providing everything for its citizens. We learnt that farmers can cultivate a little garden for themselves, the crop they can then either keep, sell or barter we learnt that through the ability to doВ somebusiness, a small middle class has emerged, which means that they can buy their kids nicer clothes or take them out to an amusement park and we learnt that there are five taxi companies in Pyongyang competing for customers вЂ“ they are still state owned, but by different government bodies. In summary, Zellweger calls these changes the six MвЂ™s: market, money, mobile phones, motorcars, middle-class, mindset. On June 7, she talked to Asia Society Switzerland about everyday life of the people living in North Korea, what change вЂ“ socially and economically вЂ“ they underwent, and how the continuing sanctions are slowly deteriorating what has recently changed for the better. Katharina Zellweger visited North Korea for the first time in 1995 and has since been to the country around 70 times, still counting. Little is still known about North Korea and life behind the totalitarian curtain.

Life in north korea