Learning from Sister Gabriella

“Growth is like the tree growing. If the roots can’t support the branches growing wide, the tree will fall.” Decades ago, Sister Gabriella pondered the future of cooperatives.

CHO HYUN-SOOKThe author is a business news reporter of the JoongAng Ilbo. In 1926, Sister Mary Gabriella Mulherin set foot in Joseon. The 26-year-old nun from Pennsylvania arrived in the desolate land of Pyongan Province. She traveled throughout the countryside to help poor farmers who were suffering under the Japanese colonial rule. Her service of more than 10 years was stopped by Japan’s deportation order. World War II was intensifying.

She could not forget the children of Joseon, who had a hard time pronouncing her name, Gabriella, and called her Sister Gabyeol. In 1952, she returned to a Korea devastated by the Korean War. She helped the refugees, including widows, at Busan Maryknoll Hospital, as the distribution of relief supplies was not enough. After the war, Korea lacked money and a financial system. Most people were suffering from loan sharks.

Sister Gabriella worked for the Hudson Coal Company before becoming a nun, and she used her expertise as an accounting specialist. She took a cue from the Antigonish Movement, the cooperative system that saved Canada from the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Sister Gabriella founded the first credit cooperative in Korea, the Seongga [Hymn] Credit Cooperative, in May 1960. In partnership with the government-led National Reconstruction Movement Headquarters, she also held lectures for cooperative leaders across the country. Young people who participated in the classes returned to their hometown and set up co-ops. Between May and June 1963, five co-ops were established in Hadun, Wolgok, Jeongam, Oesi, and Masan, South Gyeongsang. The simple yet desperate slogan — “Let’s live a good life by being frugal, saving money and helping each other!” — worked. After a year, 169 local co-ops were established in South Gyeongsang alone by the end of May 1964. It was the beginning of the Korean Federation of Community Credit Cooperatives (KFCC).

After 60 years, the KFCC has grown into a financial institution with total assets worth 284 trillion won ($224 billion), as of the end of last year. The scale is comparable to that of large commercial banks.

But the entire KFCC is shaking due to bad loans and soaring delinquency rates at some local co-ops. The financial authorities “extinguished the fire” to prevent the domino of bank runs, but the anxiety has not dissipated.

“Growth is like the tree growing. If the roots can’t support the branches growing wide, the tree will fall.” Decades ago, Sister Gabriella pondered the future of cooperatives. These are words that the KFCC needs to think about now.