A Wish is Heard, and Hope is Sparked

In July 2016, Samsung Electronics Taiwan (SET) received an invitation from the Make-A-Wish Foundation International to donate a Samsung Galaxy S7 to make a courageous child’s wish come true. This led to an introduction with A-Fu, a 15-year-old boy diagnosed with leukemia. Before undergoing challenging medical treatment, A-Fu enjoyed taking pictures of the beauty in everyday life, particularly in the Buddha statues found in temples around Taiwan. Despite hospitalization, A-Fu’s passion for photography has endured. A-Fu yearned to record the bright side of his life in the hospital, but needed a smartphone in order to do so, leading him to make his wish. SET heard of A-Fu’s wish through its partnership with Kaohsiung Medical University Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital. On August 10, much to his surprise and delight, SET gifted A-Fu a Samsung Galaxy S7 to help him capture the beauty he sees in everyday life.

Helping More Children in Hospitals

After fulfilling A-Fu’s wish, SET discovered that an average of 500 children are diagnosed with cancer in Taiwan every year. Like A-Fu, they’re in hospitals undergoing challenging treatment, which see many hospitalized for an average of three months. Unfortunately, such medical difficulties make the concept of going to school to learn with their peers more dream than reality. With these children’s pressing educational needs in mind, and in an effort to introduce more fun to help alleviate their pain, SET proposed to build a Samsung Smart School within a hospital, and invited Kaohsiung Medical University Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital to partner in the effort.

Opening Up the First Hospital-Based Smart School

Thus, on January 4, 2017, the first hospital-based Samsung Smart School officially opened at Kaohsiung Medical University Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital. Featuring two spacious classrooms equipped with tablets and TVs, the facility’s design reflects those of other Smart Schools established in Taiwan. Both classrooms have been enhanced to create a motivating and entertaining digital learning environment, and feature tablets pre-installed with educational apps that enable children to learn in convenient and engaging ways.

More Partnerships Bring More Fun to Learning

Having successfully implemented the first-of-its-kind Smart School, SET is now inviting more hospitals, social workers, volunteers, art therapists and other relevant parties to partner in efforts that will provide more children access to diverse and enriching educational resources. Hospitals may utilize tablets as a new means to carry out routine health education initiatives with parents and children. Hospital volunteers may also adopt digital content as an innovative way to promote more learning. Through hospital-based Smart Schools and promising partnerships, Samsung believes more enriching, child-oriented resources may be adopted and more educational content may be delivered. Most importantly, initiatives such as this will help SET achieve its goal of providing hospitalized children equal access to digital learning opportunities in smart and fun ways.

For the past twelve years, Samsung Electronics Taiwan has worked to foster education in Taiwan’s remote areas through its Samsung Charity Running events.

This year’s event, Run for Children, proved to be the most successful yet, raising approximately NT$2.5 million (about US$80,000)—a sum that was donated by Samsung to the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families (TFCF) to go toward financing e-learning schools.

Held on October 30, the event saw some 25,000 participants of all ages gather at Taipei City Hall Square in a bid to raise awareness and pool public resources to enhance e-learning in the nation’s remote areas. Among the participants included families, government officials, celebrity athletes and Samsung employees.

The excitement was palpable as the event kicked off, but perhaps no one was more eager to participate in the run than the students from Samsung and TFCF’s e-learning programs in the Dajili Tribe in Hualien County and Taihsi Township in Yunlin County. The students were invited to run alongside some of Taiwan’s most iconic athletes, including Shu-ching Hsu, a Rio 2016 Olympic Games gold medalist in weightlifting; star archers Hao-wen Kao and Ya-ting Tan; gymnast Chih-kai Lee; and Taiwan’s top hurdler, Jay Chen.

The opportunity was just as rewarding for the athletes as it was exciting for the children. Hao-wen Kao, who grew up in Hualien County, discussed his passion for raising awareness about education in Taiwan’s remote areas.

“I feel very close to the children, especially since many of them are from my hometown,” Kao stated. “Knowing that they want to study in the classroom even after school, and enjoy the same e-learning environment and resources as their urban counterparts, we felt very motivated during the run.”

Because this year’s run was held the day before Halloween, Samsung added even more fun to the event with a number of costume booths, where runners could transform into pumpkins and witches. Reveling in the carnival-like atmosphere, runners young and old snapped and shared their best shots, thus creating special memories that won’t soon be forgotten.

Now in its twelfth year, the annual Samsung Charity Running event has attracted a total of over 250,000 participants, making it the biggest and most cherished family charity run in Taiwan.

“The tremendous positive energy enables Samsung Taiwan and TFCF to continue to help children in remote areas by providing them with e-learning resources and encouraging them to pursue their dreams,” noted Jaeyub Lee, President of Samsung Electronics Taiwan. “Samsung Taiwan will continue to fulfil its social responsibilities by creating better educational opportunities for every child.”