When and why were you founded?
Racines Association was founded in 1995 by a band of young French adoptees. The founding members: Yolaine Cellier, Marie Franville, Guillaume Goulin, and Karine Grijol were very interested in Korea and adoption. At the time, Korea was an unknown country in Europe, so Racines coréennes was created to learn more about Korean culture.
What was the reason behind making an official organization?
There are at least 12,000 French adoptees from Korea. We are the second country with the highest number of Korean adoptees in the world. As you can imagine, it made perfect sense to organize ourselves.
What is your role in Racines?
I am a member of the board of the association as the general secretary. Before 2015, I knew of the association but not the members or kinds of people in the organization.
What is the history of Racines?
In the 2000s, Racines coréennes was a member of an official consulting group for the French government regarding international adoption. As the oldest adoptee generation from abroad, we could attest to the experience of being a French citizen adopted from abroad. We have about 130 active members, but we are larger (around 200 people) including our family members. Of the roughly 12,000 French adoptees, many of them have been members of the association at one time.
Now is the time for the second generation, our kids, and this is the reason why so many of us are coming back to Racines coréennes. We are proud of what we are, and we want to show our culture and origins to our kids; some who are very young, and some who are teenagers or even older.
Korea is also more popular than ever, and this is another reason why people joined the association. They want to know more about the association and Korean culture. We are currently growing, and this is for the best.
What are some events that you plan during the year?
We plan many events. We have at least two big events a year and our monthly lunch, which is organized in a Parisian Korean restaurant. This is for our members and anyone who would like to meet the association members. It is a wonderful time to share delicious Korean food at a central place in Paris. Children have grown up, and it is very nice to share this time with all of our families. Not every Korean adoptee has children, but the ones who do are very pleased seeing them meet other children of adoptees and becoming friends.
Our delegations in the French regions also organize events on their side. Every year, we organize events with other Korean associations in France. We have links with KOWIN (Korean Women in France), and ARCF, the Korean community in France. We are also close with other associations interested in Korean culture. We work with the travel agency Corée Voyages, based in Seoul, organizing two trips a year to Korea for members and their families. For our adoptee members , this is a good way to go back to Korea for the first time. Travelling with other adoptees can also be less stressful, especially when one wants to learn more about his or her origins.
What kind of services do you provide your members?
We give information about birth family search procedures because some of our members are coming to the association to find out about it. This year, because of the lockdowns, we provided webinars. There was also news about administrative procedures, and we tried to clarify these points.
Meeting each other is the most important. This year, it was very difficult to meet in person, so we planned many occasions to meet online: Korean language lessons, meeting time with members and adoptees from all over France, and yoga time to relax, for example. This was a success. Many of our members want to meet in person now after meeting online. Because we can talk with people far away, it is a good way to share and talk about our stories.
We also took advantage of the respite granted in the summer to have some picnics outside and to have our monthly lunch.
We also provide activities and events across all of France with our delegations. There are three of them now, and we are currently developing more. This link is very important in different parts of France. Our president tried to personally meet every delegation in different cities (Toulouse, Orléans, and Lyon). There are plans for future delegations in Strasbourg and Bordeaux, so we are still growing.
As I said, the second generation, our kids, is the most important for us. We are proud to be born in Korea, and now Korea has become very famous and popular around the world.
Connect With Us!
Website: www.racinescoreennes.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/racines.coreennes
Instagram: @racinescoreennes
Address: 100 boulevard Masséna, 75013 Paris, France
