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"I couldn't ignore people with troubles since I was in high school. I felt their pain as if it were my own," Father Vincenzo Bordo says in surprisingly clear Korean.
At Anna's House in Sungnam, Gyeonggi Province on Thursday, Bordo, who goes by the Korean name Kim Ha-jong, was wearing an apron and busily preparing food.
With help from volunteers, Bordo serves dinner to 400 homeless people every day at Anna's. The 51-year-old Italian first came to Korea in 1990 to study Oriental philosophy, and he's been helping to serve the dinners since.
Recently Bordo has also been tacking the problem of dyslexia. "I didn't know I was dyslexic when I was a kid," he says. "It took me several more hours to read a book than the other kids, and still I didn't get it. I struggled a lot, thinking I was inferior."
Dyslexia is a learning disorder in which people have a hard time with written language, particularly with reading and spelling. A study shows that it's found in about five percent of the population.
In 2003 Father Bordo founded the Korea Dyslexia Association to raise awareness of the disorder. He wanted dyslexics to understand the cause of their problem and know that they are not "inferior." Dyslexics can lead a normal life through proper diagnosis and education.
With help from Yonsei University Medical School's Institute of Logopedics and Phoniatrics and the Italian Cultural Institute in Seoul, Bordo opened the inaugural International Seminar on Dyslexia in November.
Every month since April he has been inviting professors from Ewha Womans University, Seoul National University, Yonsei University and Dankook University to a training session for parents with dyslexic children. He also manages a website to share information (cafe.daum.net/dyslexia7).
"Thanks to the disability, I've come to better understand other people's pain and became a priest," Father Bordo said. Though much more complex than the written word, Bordo seems to have few problems understanding the human mind.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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