A volunteer shows students how to effectively capture images using a digital camera

While equal rights continue to be widely discussed, gender equality hasn’t necessarily been the norm in many parts of the world. According to the United Nations Development Programme(UNDP)’s 2015 gender inequality index(GII: higher the score, more severe the inequality), the average of South Asian countries (0.520) are behind the world (0.443) in terms of gender equality. Nepal is also part of the struggle – especially as it’s still recovering from the massive earthquakes that hit the mountainous country.

To help address this challenge, 25 Samsung Electronics employee volunteers travelled to Nepal last September to run the Designer’s School for Women Entrepreneurship*, a one-week course that focused on empowering girls and young women with skills in design and technology.

The Designer’s School for Women Entrepreneurship taught basics in business & marketing, writing resumes, interview skills and also held workshops for image-taking, editing and graphic design.

The teachers were at first worried that the students might have a hard time keeping up with the classes. But they were soon overwhelmed by the passion of the students – they would give up their breaks to ask questions and one girl, based on what she’d learned, even handed in her resume to a local designer.

Jihae Lim (Senior Designer, Future Experience Design Group, Visual Display Business) emphasized that it is important to empower people. “While many Nepalese women knit, it wasn’t until someone started selling it and invited more people to take part before it bloomed into a business,” she says. “We need to tap into the talents already in place and work to develop them into marketable practices. In enabling them to be independent, we take a step closer to sustainable development.”

Kusum, a local student, said that her eyes were opened to futures she previously hadn’t even dreamed of. And inspired by these new possibilities, she shared her passion with fellow young women in her area in the form of a poem.

by Kusum

“Surreal”

Many nights has given to you

Why don’t you practice it?

Don’t be quivered

What you can do just exhibit

Whatever was yesterday year

Let’s not feelings to quelled

Hey queen, crown is falling down

Don’t be moped

Don’t humiliate yourself

Just hatch your ideas

You’re the supreme of own

If needed just do rumpus

Be like a bonny moon

Who knows to glow in the dark

fight against your fear

Rush up, and try to stroke

Don’t be boggled

Be drivers of yourself

Sortie your afraidness

Create world full of light

plant new beautiful flowers

in your moored life

Know yourself, get yourself

Before being some’s wife

Leader in technology, Samsung Latin America, has just announced an unprecedented partnership with the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme the UN organization that contributes to peace and development through volunteerism worldwide. UNV values volunteerism as a powerful means of engaging people in tackling development challenges.

UNV’s Online Volunteering service connects volunteers with organizations working for sustainable human development. Volunteers contribute their skills online to help organizations address development challenges. Organizations collaborate with online volunteers over the Internet to strengthen the impact of their development work.

UNV aims to expand the global reach of the UNV Online Volunteering service and explore innovative methods to ensure the broadest possible participation by all members of society. UNV and Samsung are partnering to harness this largely untapped and vast resource for peace and development, and where possible scale up corporate, online and mobile volunteering.

In addition to enhance the exchange of best practices with UN Volunteers, Samsung aims to diversify its volunteer practices, impact a higher number of people positively and become a global benchmark in these activities

The UNV-Samsung cooperation will start as a pilot in Brazil, which hosts the headquarters of Samsung’s operations in Latin America. Initially, the company will contribute to promoting online volunteering and UNV’s service in Brazil and later will extend the activity to other Latin American countries. Samsung will provide support to partner non-governmental organizations from several sectors to leverage the services provided by the UNV Online Volunteering service and will encourage its employees to volunteer online in the new environment, which aims to engage as many volunteers as possible. Representing a first for the private sector, Samsung aims to expand online volunteer activities that can benefit organizations and people around the world and contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

Pedro Kim, President and CEO of Samsung Latin America, and Amanda Mukwashi, Chief of the Volunteer Knowledge and Innovation Section of UNV announced the partnership on Monday 18 April 2016 in the Samsung regional office in São Paulo.

“We are very proud of this innovative partnership with UNV. For us, at Samsung, this action represents a major step in our commitment to volunteer actions, which have been established in the Company for over 20 years”, said Pedro Kim, President and CEO of Samsung Latin America. The executive explains the company’s expectation on this partnership: “Samsung’s partnership with UNV will also increase Samsung’s capabilities to build a volunteer program even more solid. This is just the beginning of a partnership that we expect to grow stronger.”

For Amanda Mukwashi, this is a ground-breaking partnership. “The new sustainable development agenda cannot be achieved without volunteer engagement. Connecting the specific expertise and means of the private sector with complementary, yet essential, community voluntary action bears an enormous potential to drive inclusive growth and achieve a truly transformational agenda.”

This cooperation with UNV further strengthens the commitment that the South Korean company has made to volunteering. Samsung promotes global and local programs, in order to dedicate human and technological resources to improve the local community and positively impact people taking part. Engaging its employees in online volunteering, the company hopes to promote networking between its offices in Latin America to foster volunteerism and thus enhance their positive impact.

UNV is strengthening its innovation by pursuing co-creation related to corporate volunteering for the SDGs with multiple and new partners, including the private sector, governments, the UN and volunteer-involving organizations. This will allow for a better mix of skills that are more attuned to the challenges of the local and national context.

Volunteering at Samsung

Samsung promotes local volunteering actions throughout the year involving its employees in visits to social institutions, such as NGOs, and in the development of activities with children and adolescents.

Helvio Kanamaru, Senior Manager of Corporate Citizenship at Samsung for Latin America, mentions the importance of voluntary action for the company: “Our volunteers complete the initiatives we developed with students, communities and entities supported by the company in the countries where we operate. Through volunteering, Samsung also enables its employees to take part and learn more about the company’s Corporate Citizenship platform”.

Every year, in October, Samsung also promotes Global Volunteering Month, an activity that aims to benefit hundreds of people, through a schedule of diverse actions to serve the community. In the last three years, Samsung’s volunteering program counted on the participation of nearly 1,500 Samsung employees in Latin America. These volunteer activities have taken place globally since 1994.

About United Nations Volunteers

The United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme contributes to peace and development through volunteerism worldwide. Samsung works with partners to integrate qualified, highly motivated and well-supported UN Volunteers into development programming and promote the value and global recognition of volunteerism. UNV is active in around 130 countries every year. With Field Presences in over 80 countries, UNV is represented worldwide. UNV is administered by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and reports to the UNDP Executive Board. UNV was created by the UN General Assembly in 1970 and has operated in Brazil since 1998.