Noble Service for Society

Samsung Fire provides help to children of disabled parents,farm villages and the blind

The Samsung Fire and Marine Insurance Co. has been providing since 1993 living expenses and gifts to children of those who have been involved in traffic accidents and having difficulty making both ends meet. The company provided admission gifts and school uniforms to students of middle and high schools, whose parents have been involved in traffic accidents and who were left disabled. The company also has been conducting programs for emotional stability of those children through special tie-ups with company officials who visit their homes and invite them to the company.
Samsung Fire and its officers and staff have been trying to be strong supporters and friends for those children who will take over one day as workers in the future of the country.
In 1993, the company started the program with 26 children together with the Children Traffic Safety Association and 128 children became adults and 157 children are currently under the program through the matching system in which a department is matched with a child in extending support. The company's officers and staff become their brothers and sisters and parents sometimes and have been doing their best to take care of them.
Those children are unfortunate ones who either lost their parent or parents or have disabled parents due to auto accidents and therefore having hard time economically.
Samsung Fire have also been conducting "Love Farm Village"program since July last year in order to help out those farm villagers who have been hurt by the expanded imports of foreign agricultural products under the World Trade Organization regulations and the FTAs concluded with foreign countries. The Samsung Group inked the support agreement with Nonghyup in July last year under which one department has an arrangement with a farm village and a Samsung affiliate has been responsible to provide help to 100 villages.
The company has been carrying out the project under three major principles; first, the company's officers and employees and their families will experience farm life by visiting farm villages; they will use facilities in farm villages for their bonding rallies; The company, officers and staff will purchase farm produce through e-farm produce trade.
Samsung Fire, first, selected farm villages and proceeded with signing tie up agreements with those villages. Each of its department also signed a tie-up agreement with its assigned village. Each department went ahead with its cooperation program with the village assigned to it. A total of 100 departments belonging to Samsung affiliates kicked off their activities with the farm villages under their responsibilities.
The entire group participated in the Farm Village Service Festival in October last year, which included workshops by each department with family members joining and purchasing farm produce. They also held a special service devoted to the education on preventing auto accidents and free check-ups on cars in November. A total of 3,000 Samsung employees participated in the program and bought 280 million won worth of rice from those villages following the passage of the rice import bill at the National Assembly, which would hurt the farm villages across the country.
The group also helped with the recovery of damage in North Jeolla Province from heavy snow in December last year. Samsung Fire will conduct its cooperative activities with its farm villages throughout all year, providing economic support to those villages and holding workshops in those villages. The company rushed its employees to the villages to help with the damage from the heavy snow and buy rice following the passage of the rice import bill at the parliament.
Samsung Fire also has been operating a Guide Dog School, the only one in the world since 1994 with the approval of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. Every year the school turned out guide dogs through two or three education periods for canine guides. At the present time, 59 out of 92 dogs trained at the school are active.
The school secured the quality certificate from the World Guide Dog Association in 1999 following its launching in 1994 based on a study of examples of guide dog training in institutions in advanced countries and expert advises. The trainers were sent to New Zealand for training and the school held campaign and public relations work to correct prejudices against the disabled and guide dogs. nw

A group of the disabled people enjoy the Cherry Blossom Festival together with employees of Samsung Fire and Marine Insurance Co. in Seoul on the occasion of the 25th Day of the Disabled People last year.