 |
| Aliosa from Bosnia cheers for the Gyeongbuk Curling Association in his email to World Vision Korea. The association's members, competing as national athletes in the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, have been supporting him financially since 2011. / Yonhap |
By Ko Dong-hwan
A boy from Bosnia cheered for the South Korean curling team competing in the PyeongChang Winter Olympics after he had been receiving financial support from the athletes for the past few years.
Aliosa, 16, sent an email on Feb. 8 containing a video message to World Vision Korea, a nongovernmental organization supporting children suffering from poverty across the world. In the video, the boy thanked South Korea's Gyeongbuk Curling Association, whose members include the Olympians, for helping him with his education.
"With your warm support, I can now go to a senior school," the boy said in the email. "Thank you for supporting me. Cheers to your good outcomes in the Winter Olympics."
A photo released by World Vision Korea shows Aliosa holding a piece of paper with a message that reads, "Go! Kyungbuk Curling Team in Pyeongchang!"
The Gyeongbuk Curling Association, established in 1995 in Uiseong County, North Gyeongsang Province, trained players on the South Korean men's and women's national curling teams and sent them to the PyeongChang Olympics. Following a story of the underdog's rise shown by five girls from the women's team who outperformed all competitors in the preliminaries, the curling center has received the limelight as South Korea's Mecca for curlers.
 |
| Members of Gyeongbuk Curling Association hold Aliosa's picture at their training center in Uiseong County, North Gyeongsang Province, July 2017. / Yonhap |
What has not been well known about the association is that its star athletes contacted the NGO in 2011 and started financially supporting Aliosa. The boy graduated from middle school thanks to the athletes, according to his email.
On July 17, the Olympians released a group selfie of themselves holding a photo of Aliosa, promoting the NGO and encouraging everyone to participate in philanthropy.
The South Korean curling team has been playing at the PyeongChang Olympics with the NGO's symbol on their uniforms. While the national athletes started supporting a Vietnamese child this year, Kim Kyeong-ae, one of the women's team members, is helping another child from her own country.
![[INTERVIEW] 'One Day Off' star Lee Na-young, director on creating subtle, feel-good series](https://img.koreatimes.co.kr/upload/thumbnailV2/796618f56a44402eabe81fe4530ab988.jpg/dims/resize/178/optimize)
![[INTERVIEW] Lee Jun-hyuk unrecognizable in 'The Roundup: No Way Out'](https://img.koreatimes.co.kr/upload/thumbnailV2/77a9da6df7da4284adbee249a87307c1.jpg/dims/resize/178/optimize)
