Donation information, and sad news, for injured Mokpo teacher Nerine Viljoen.

from Brian In Jeollanan-dong

Here is bank account information for the South African teacher injured in a fire in Mokpo last weekend. Just a preface, this is the person who has been collecting money from the beginning, and as I understand it he is passing the money directly to the parents. I had hoped a new account would have turned up, but it can be difficult for foreigners to do something like this, I understand, with regulations on receiving and transferring money.

Nicko Janse van Vuuren
Shinhan Bank
acc no. 110 -194 -121017

Here is bank account information for those in South Africa, to forward money directly to her father:

D M Viljoen
Absa Bank
cheque acc no. 044 0920640
Mountain Mall
Worcester
South Africa

Main Branch code 503107

The person who gave me this information also passed along some bad news:

Doctors gave up hope. And they are busy with arrangements to take her body
home when they put of the machines on Saturday.

Donations will help with travel and medical expenses. Give what you can.

No, I don't know why so little personal information about the woman has been shared about this woman. I'm not in Mokpo, have never met her, and can't really do anything about that. Hopefully others will come forward and let us put a face to the name.

* Update 1 (December 8th, 20:14): Here's a Facebook group called "Bid vir Nerine Viljoen," Afrikaans for "Pray for Nerine Viljoen." Someone set up an English version here. A Dave's poster out of Mokpo has also passed along some information about Nerine from a friend:

Her name is Nerine Viljoen. She grew up in the Western Cape South Africa.
She studied her education degree in Worcester.
She worked in SA teaching and found out that she cannot make a decent living with the money she earned there.
She wanted to go to London but things didn't work out. In the end she came to Korea.

She said language is no barrier! And went to Jeju with her church members to do missionary work.
She was planning to go to YWam next year and commit and to her mission training in New Zealand. She is just one of the unselfish people I ever met. She serves everybody and adores Korea and the crime free country were she could walk in the streets without looking over her shoulder.

She was very excited to see the snow and to ski for the very first time. As you no its a scarcety in SA.

She was also planning to go back to SA after her missions training and helping the people of her own country.
She totally loves SA !! She always seemed to be positive and making a difference when she gets enough money.

We were at the Korean embassy in SA on exact same day. The next day we stood in the same row to go on the SAME flight to Korea. (Quite cool!!)
From there on we stood with each other through the lonely times and became best friends.

I always told her that she is one of the few friends I think I'll still keep till I'm in my old age home racing her with my wheel chair down the corridors.


There is a group on Facebook that her close friends put together when the accident happened. It is in Afrikaans though, since English is not her first language.
It's called Bid vir Nerine Viljoen.
Which means Pray for Nerine Viljoen.