Park Jeong-sook, a nun and dentist who devoted her life to caring for the needy in Bangladesh, received the Foreign Ministry’s Lee Tae-seok Award last week. The award was launched in 2011 and named after a Catholic priest who died a year earlier at age 48 while helping displaced people in South Sudan. Park, 49, has been setting up schools, homes and other facilities for the poor and children with disabilities in Dhaka since 2005. In 2007 she opened a hospital to provide free dental care services

Arranging linen and folding towels may be simple and monotonous tasks for many hoteliers. But for Lee Sang-hyuk, 23, the work is a precious source of confidence and hope for the future. Lee, a new employee of the Plaza Hotel in the heart of Seoul, is the first regular hotelier with a disability in the country. He has a mild, third-degree intellectual disability, a level in which social and occupational rehabilitation is possible through education and training. After three months of training, Lee

As winter sets in, a variety of organizations have donated charcoal bricks to poor residents across the country. Korea Zinc executives and employees participated in the event held by the Seoul chapter of the Korean Red Cross to deliver 10,000 charcoal bricks to 50 households in the Nowon-gu district of Seoul on Monday. The company workers and Red Cross volunteers lined up to relay the bricks as well as blankets and ramen.In Busan, a regional Buddhist volunteering group joined a philanthropic eve

“I Love Africa,” a nongovernmental organization dedicated to improving the lives of people in Africa, launched a service corps Monday to drill 15 wells in Tanzania. The volunteers will leave for the East African country on Saturday to dig 15 fresh water wells in elementary school yards over a seven-day period. I Love Africa began a campaign in 2011 to explore springs in Africa. It has already set up 22 wells in Tanzania. An additional 15 wells, if dedicated this time, will supply drinking water

In the basement of an old, unnamed building in central Seoul, about 70 seniors line up for free lunch. A man wearing a green apron brings meal to them one by one. This has been the daily routine for Kim Jong-eun, 78, president of Hangil Volunteer Community, for the past 10 years.Kim, now a garment firm owner, was a street beggar himself following his blind mother in Buyeo, South Chungcheong Province. “I still vividly remember the days my mom and I suffered from hunger on the streets. Have you ev

Private insurance companies have spent the recent chilly days doing pro bono work and giving back to local communities.About 30 workers from Samsung Fire and Marine Insurance threw a party on Friday afternoon for the 100-day-old celebrations for the baby boy of a poor, single mom living in a welfare shelter in the Seodaemungu district of Seoul.They invited some 100 colleagues and shelter dwellers to the event to brighten up the atmosphere. The party was held in the cafeteria of the insurer’s hea

Han Yong-oe, former president of Samsung Electronics’ home appliance unit and Samsung Community Services, immediately began doing what he loved when he retired in 2009.That year he founded Inclover, a social welfare foundation for multicultural families, with 1 billion won ($935,000) of his own money.Social services and multicultural families were not strange words to Han. He had done a lot of social work for those in need, including multicultural families, when he headed corporate philanthropy

Early this month, a deaf teenage boy received a hearing aid, thanks to donations from a handful of fellow teens who used their musical talents to raise money. The seed of their philanthropic act was planted about two years ago when a young clarinetist visited a welfare center as a member of a student volunteer club at his school.“As I talked about helping the physically challenged with my friends while doing volunteer work there, I started to wonder what it would feel like if I wasn’t able to he

College students in South Korea are running a free textbook rental program as part of efforts to reduce the burden of buying increasingly expensive academic books used in classes. The program named “Dream Library” has become a representative textbook-sharing channel for Sogang University in Seoul, with more students joining the project that spurs used textbooks to be used more effectively and extensively on campus. The free textbook lending program, organized by Sogang’s Student Club Union, allo

Fans of Kim Jeong-hoon, a Korean singer and actor also known in Japan as “John Hoon,” donated 1.12 tons of rice to the homeless, his agency said last Wednesday.They sent the rice to congratulate Kim on landing a role in an upcoming drama series of on a local cable television channel on July 30. The rice was delivered to a theater in Dongdaemun, Seoul, on that day, where the channel presented the show and its cast members to news media. Then, at his fans’ suggestion, the rice was later delivered

Won, 59, makes more than 100 cups of coffee every day at a small take-out shop in Yeongdeungpo, southwestern Seoul.For the fledgling barista, Cafe Espresso of My Life is not merely a workplace, but where he started over after years spent on the streets.“I used to live in the darkness but now I feel like I’m waking a bit,” said Won, who declined to give his full name. The cafe, established by the city government, is staffed by two homeless people who have been trained through Seoul’s self-support