Opening Remarks - Disability as a Teaching Tool for Life

Part 1 I am a carer in Melbourne

I am a carer in Melbourne
Voluntarily chosen non-regular hourly wage system
Still, there is room
It requires ability and sincerity
Money earned through physical labor
I live on rice

Interview 01 Not 'This' but 'This' Meaningful
- Senior C, retired as a nursing assistant
Interview 02 “Practical experience is more important here.”
- K, a care work advocate

Part 2 With a heart to care for my mother

Safety, safety, safety again
With a heart that cares for my mother
Don't hate even if you don't feel affection
I met my mom after 5 years
End-of-life experiences of home caregivers
Last care, last goodbye

Interview 03 “This should be my job.”
- J, who has been working as a nurse for 20 years

Part 3: Two Races, Two Cultures

Another world called autism
Two races, two cultures
Time to change modes
The decision to take off the mask
Show as much as you know, and act as much as you know.
“Try saying the Z again.”

Interview 04 I Never Imagined My Child Would Have Autism
- L, a single mom and disability support worker

Part 4 NDIS, Please Help Me with Disability

NDIS, please help me with my disability
It's okay even if it's reckless
My first disability camp
Disability support workers are all-rounders
Three disabled women live there.
Welcome to Melbourne's public swimming pools

Interview 05: Living Witness to Disability Welfare in Australia
- NDIS Support Coordinator A
Interview 06: Immigrant Families Receiving Disability Welfare Benefits
- Parent M of a child with disability receiving NDIS services

Closing Remarks - Elder Care: Teaching About Death
References
Release - Rethinking Labor and Welfare, Disability and Care (Hong Na-ri)

“Above all, it’s fun.
“It feels like I’ve met the Joan of Arc of the non-literary world.”
-Ryu Seung-yeon, author of "The World My Son Lives In"

“We think about the future of the community beyond issues of care and disability.
“I highly recommend this book as a must-read for everyone.”
Hong Na-ri, health economist

"Caring for other people's lives has become the strength that sustains my own."
Re-examining labor and welfare, disability and care,
Care work records of a Korean-Australian immigrant

Young bodies, old bodies, bodies that struggle to control themselves, even twisted bodies,
In a landscape where all bodies exist as ‘their own bodies’
The boundaries between disability and non-disability are collapsing, and diverse patterns of life are dancing.
A colorful and beautiful world of care created with those bodies

Ordinary citizens enjoy swimming freely while people with disabilities and the elderly receive aquatic rehabilitation and physical therapy.
People with severe and complex disabilities can also participate in camping and physical activity, with a 65-page support guide.
Elderly people receiving palliative care pass away peacefully at home with the help of nurses.
The sight of all bodies existing as 'their own bodies' - young bodies, old bodies, bodies that cannot support themselves, bodies with twisted limbs - was an unfamiliar and surprising sight even to an Australian immigrant of 10 years.
The author, who worked as an English teacher for over ten years before taking a break from her career due to pregnancy, childbirth, and childcare, found that the field that was easiest for an immigrant to enter was care work.
He studied hard to become a teacher, saying he wanted to live differently from his parents, but in the end, he became a manual laborer again like his parents.
It started out as a way to supplement my husband's income, but from the moment I decided to become a single mother, care work became a desperate livelihood.
Becoming a competent caregiver was not an option, it was a necessity.


The burden of care was heavy.
But within it, a new meaning blossomed.
Australia's culture of valuing and rewarding hard work financially and psychologically also had a major influence.
Helping a person with dementia bathe, caring for an elderly person who cannot control their body, and watching over their last breath were physically demanding, but each moment brought deep reflection and comfort.
Caring for the lives of others becomes a process of rewriting one's own life and a journey of growth.
So I'm happy to praise the work of a caregiver.
Melbourne's care scene is a microcosm of multiculturalism.
Australia's welfare system would not function without the labour of migrants from India, Nepal, Kenya, the Philippines, China, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Uzbekistan and Myanmar, aged from their 20s to their 60s.
The author is also a part of that multicultural scene, and an immigrant who endures under the name of a caregiver.
This book is a record of his growth as he has developed his professional skills and expertise while working as a disability support worker and caregiver since 2022.


Moving between the care landscapes of Korea and Australia,
Continued in the name of welfare
Delicately capturing the weight of different lives

This book delicately captures the weight of different lives carried out in the name of welfare, moving between the care landscapes of Korea and Australia.
In the author's childhood memories, care was always the family's responsibility.
My mother, who had been taking care of my grandmother for three years and my father for two years on the floor of a room without a bed, eventually collapsed from a cerebral infarction.
In a time when the word "rehabilitation" was unfamiliar, there was neither the time nor the means to take the patient to the hospital several times a week.
My mother, who had lost the ability to speak and had difficulty moving, passed away in a nursing home.
When I think of a stroke patient who is working hard to rehabilitate at home, receiving physical therapy, speech therapy, and psychological treatment, I feel even more heartbroken for my mother, who once received no help.
I also have experience raising children.
When I complained about the difficulties of raising a child in Korea, I was met with responses like, “I’m a mother who is desperate to brand a perfectly healthy child with a disability.”
After immigrating, my son was diagnosed with ADHD, and when a developmental specialist told me to raise him “with the help of professionals instead of struggling alone,” I finally felt empathy and burst into tears.


In Korea, the burden of care that would be borne by the family is distributed across the state and institutions in Australia.
For the elderly, there is 'My Aged Care', and for the disabled, there is 'National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS)'.
These institutions, whose names are unfamiliar, have effectively shifted care from an individual responsibility to a social right.
In a structure where support funds are directly allocated and the necessary services are selected, the subject of care is no longer the family or guardian, but the person concerned.
Of course, inequality still remains in Australian society, and there are those who cannot overcome the system's limitations.
But at least someone's illness or disability doesn't immediately lead to the downfall of the entire family.
The fact that the burden of care is not borne alone makes Australia a different landscape from Korea.

From care for elderly people with dementia and palliative care patients
Covering disability camps, group homes, and daily support for autistic people
Contains a wide range of caregiving experiences

In Australia, the qualifications for both nursing assistant and disability support worker are interchangeable.
The author works in a variety of roles, including as a disability support worker at an agency, a freelance disability support worker, a home visiting caregiver, and a caregiver at a nursing home.
The customer base is diverse, ranging from elementary school students to those in their 60s, and the types of disabilities are also wide, including physical disabilities, developmental disabilities, dementia, eating disorders, Down syndrome, and severe multiple disabilities.
So, I am accumulating experience in a wide range of care, from caring for elderly people with dementia and palliative care patients to disability camps, group homes, and daily support for people with autism.


What is particularly noteworthy is the experience of supporting neurodiverse people, including those with autism and ADHD.
The author views neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism, ADHD, Tourette syndrome, and dyslexia as individual differences rather than pathological symptoms or defects, and calls these people neurodiverse.
He has been self-educating himself about autism and ADHD for over 10 years while raising his ADHD son.
Going through the arduous process of trying to understand my son gave me a new perspective on the world of neurodivergent people.
Now, we are expanding our activities to help children who were excluded from care and services because they were 'unseen' to be diagnosed and further to advocate for their right to education.

Care for the elderly and severely disabled has long been recognized as a 'necessary task'.
However, care for neurodiverse people is still shrouded in prejudice and stigma.
Although they are labeled as 'strange', 'sensitive', 'eccentric', 'insensitive', and 'unsocial', they too need care and support to survive in their daily lives.
The author argues that only when social understanding and culture of disability and diversity are widespread can these children be identified earlier and offered timely assistance.

Includes six interviews that capture the multifaceted voices of caregivers.

This book contains the voices of six people who live through care work and the welfare system: a retired caregiver, a new support worker just entering the field, a nurse with decades of experience, a practitioner in the field of disability welfare, and a parent raising a child with disabilities.
Their testimonies are not mere appendices; they complement the author's experiences and illuminate the field of care in a more three-dimensional way.

Retired caregiver C was humble and reserved, saying, “Why are you interviewing for something like this?” but the meaning of the labor he has accumulated throughout his life is fully reflected in his narrative.
J, a Korean immigrant who has worked as a nurse for over 20 years, provides an in-depth explanation of Australia's care system, from caregiving culture and the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) to voluntary assisted dying. A, an NDIS support coordinator, and M, an immigrant who raises a child with a disability and receives welfare benefits, reveal the specifics of daily life within the disability welfare system.

As their experiences are added, the book's narrative expands beyond individual experience to become a testimony of a community.
This leads care work to become a subject of social reflection rather than a matter of personal dedication, and clearly shows that the author's experience is not simply a personal record but rather intersects with issues of institutions and social structure.