Firms offer aid to multicultural families

By Kim Ji-soo

Companies are moving to provide multicultural households, currently estimated at 266,000 around the nation, with various forms of educational assistance.

According to the Ministry of Education and industry, LG opened in 2010 a multicultural school, jointly with the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies and Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), to provide two years of free language and science education for young people in multicultural families. In 2011, this program added online educational courses.

The program features open recruiting of students from 1st through 8th graders. There are currently 60 students enrolled offline, and 330 students studying online.

For talented science students, LG provides a two-day program at KAIST in Daejeon, as well as holiday camps and entry to international science contests. For those with outstanding language abilities, LG holds a monthly two-day education and annual 10-day camps in the countries of the languages they are studying.

To date, LG has sent 10 students through the programs to international middle schools and specialty high schools, where the entry bar remains high.

Woori Financial Group put down 20 billion won ($18 mil.) in July last year via its affiliated company to launch the Woori Multi-culture Scholarship Foundation.

Since its establishment, the foundation has given 680 million won in scholarships to 1,033 primary and secondary schools from economically challenged multicultural families and also to stellar college students.

In addition, Woori has found a multicultural children’s choir comprising members of multicultural elementary schools as well as operating an economics/ entrepreneur education for migrant foreign wives residing in Siheung and Ansan in Gyeonggi Province. Moreover, the foundation hosts various camps and writing contests for students.

The Hana Financial Group last August signed a three-way cooperation agreement with the Korea Student Aid Foundation and the National Institute for Lifelong Education (NILE) to nurture talented human resources and begin projects to further promote understanding of multiculturalism.

The group in March delivered scholarship to 20 outstanding students from multicultural families via the Korea Student Aid Foundation. It also works with NILE and the National Center for Multi-Cultural Education to produce and distribute educational contents to promote multicultural understanding.

In addition, the group’s cultural center “Darin” provides Korean language, cooking, banking and other family education programs.