Miss Kathi

The remarkable story of Swiss aid worker Kathi Zellweger, whose history of engagement with a secretive, isolated North Korea over nearly three decades is unprecedented in its scope, access, and humanitarian impact. One of the first book-length accounts in English by an aid worker operating on the ground in North Korea, Miss Kathi chronicles the story of a woman who has lived out her commitment to the poor and most vulnerable—undaunted by the tensions and threat of conflict perpetually looming over the Korean peninsula. For many North Koreans, Kathi Zellweger—a native of Switzerland—was the first foreigner they had ever met or even seen. Playing a central role in the early years of international relief efforts in North Korea was a lonely job, as Kathi addressed the humanitarian needs of a suffering people largely ignored by the world because of their citizenship. She befriended local doctors, nurses, and caregivers; negotiated with suspicious government officials; overcame international doubts about the diversion of relief supplies to the military; and, over a period of years, spearheaded an effort that provided food, medicine, and development aid. Ultimately, her efforts saved the lives of thousands of people—most of them children. As one official in Pyongyang emotionally declared to her during a visit in the late 1990s, even though she was in no way a missionary, “Miss Kathi—you are the Mother Teresa of North Korea!”

Kathi Zellweger is a senior aid manager with over thirty years of field experience in Hong Kong, China, and North Korea. She was based in Pyongyang for five years (2006–2011) as the North Korea country director for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), an office of the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Before joining SDC, from 1978 to 2006, Zellweger worked in a senior post for the Catholic Agency Caritas in Hong Kong, where she played a key role in pioneering Caritas’s involvement in China and North Korea. She also managed the Hong Kong–based KorAid Limited, a nonprofit she established in 2015 to focus on serving children in institutions and people with disabilities in North Korea. Zellweger is affiliated with the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University in California. She holds a master’s degree in international administration from the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont.