November 26, 2024

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Officials from Samsung Electronics donate funds to Save the Children Fund and Good Neighbors International at the company headquarters in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, Wednesday. (Samsung Electronics)

Samsung Electronics said Wednesday it has donated over 230 million won ($174,000) by launching a socially responsible campaign in May, driven by employee participation, to support 20 children from low-income households.

Samsung’s chairman Lee Jae-yong, who has reportedly made numerous anonymous donations, is trying to spread a culture of donation throughout affiliates of Samsung Group.

The Month of Sharing campaign was designed to encourage Samsung employees’ donations through the Nanum Kiosk installed in the workplace. Nanum means sharing in Korean. Donations worth 1,000 won were made each time employees tag their ID cards on the kiosks, as well as through in-house office message systems.

“In celebration of the family month in May, we held the campaign to help our neighbors in need and over 26,000 workers participated in the campaign,” Park Hark-kyu, president and head of corporate management office at Samsung Electronics said during the campaign wrap-up event held at the company’s headquarters in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, Wednesday.

While Samsung has operated a total of 59 Nanum Kiosks -- 35 in Korea and 24 overseas -- the tech giant supported one child per day for 20 working days during the campaign. The supported children, selected jointly by humanitarian NGOs Good Neighbors International and Save the Children Fund, were those suffering from a rare disease or severe disability and those from single-parent or multicultural households.

According to Park, the Nanum Kiosk was first introduced at Samsung's Gumi plant in 2015 and has since expanded to all business sites in Korea and overseas, including the US, China, India, Vietnam and Thailand. It has become a part of the company’s corporate social responsibility initiative.

“We will continue to strive for a culture of everyday donations. We hope the Nanum Kiosk will serve as priming water for the donation culture in our society,” Park said.

Over the past eight years in Korea alone, Samsung had raised a total of 2.64 billion won for 528 children. The number of annual donors increased from some 5,000 in 2015 to over 38,000 last year, the company explained.

While the company has expanded the installation of Nanum Kiosk to overseas business sites in Vietnam in 2019, Samsung Electronics Vietnam Thai Nguyen raised a total of 240 million won over the past three years. There are also efforts to support the children of co-workers in need.

First Vice Health Minister Lee Ki-il said, “It is encouraging that a company like Samsung has taken the lead in the donation culture. … I hope that this culture will spread to various places such as the National Assembly and other private firms by installing Nanum kiosks.”

By Jie Ye-eun (yeeun@heraldcorp.com)