Samsung Love & Care: Employees Giving Back in Southeast Asia and Oceania

Taking place in October and November of 2019, Samsung Love & Care is an employee volunteering program designed to provide assistance for disadvantaged youth across Southeast Asia and Oceania.

In October, over 300 volunteers cooperated with local NGOs to take part in outreach efforts in a range of countries. The group of volunteers was made up of employees from Samsung Electronics’ Southeast Asia & Oceania Headquarters and their family members, and worked to provide educational opportunities and improve learning environments for young people according to Samsung’s global citizenship vision of ‘Enabling People’. The initiative promoted investment in educational infrastructure and welfare for youths living in areas with low socioeconomic statuses in Laos, New Zealand and Thailand, among others.

On October 17, Lao Samsung sent 30 employee volunteers to Vientiane Capital Special School in the country’s capital to teach sign language using Samsung tablets. The company’s Laos branch has already supported the establishment of a library at the school, provided it with six tablets equipped with the sign language learning app HANDME, and donated more than 400 textbooks to improve learning opportunities for the deaf and speech-impaired students that study there.

October 23 saw 43 employees from Samsung New Zealand travel to Onepoto Primary School as part of the Samsung Love & Care program. Nearby redevelopments had led to a decline in school grounds and facilities in recent years, and so the volunteers set out to contribute to refurbishment efforts. Samsung employees repaired the roof and guttering on the school’s sheltered seating area, and then gave the structure a fresh coat of paint. Samsung New Zealand also provided the school with Galaxy smartphones and tablets to support digitalization and improve educational opportunities for the next generation.

On October 3, 70 Samsung Thailand employees and their families visited Ban Suansom School in Chanthaburi Province. 30 percent of the students from the school live in households that subsist on less than USD 100 per month, and the school has struggled to get support from government bodies and local charities. Samsung Thailand helped refurbish dilapidated buildings at the school, set up a school library and provided teachers with UHD TVs to use as educational tools.

Speaking about the Samsung Love & Care initiative, K.Thananchai from Samsung Thailand, who joined the activity with his son said, “The CSR activities and games we’ve participated in today have really helped us get to know each other better and bond as coworkers. It was great to see the enthusiasm with which my colleagues involved themselves in the work and the desire they had to give back to these communities.”

Samsung will continue rolling out its volunteering program across Southeast Asia and Oceania, with Cambodia and Myanmar named as two of the upcoming destinations for the Samsung Love & Care program. This year, the program expects to empower and enrich the circumstances of approximately 3,500 people across the region.