By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter
Some 30 years ago, dozens of female employees at Daewoo Securities voluntarily organized a gathering, dubbed the ``Sunbeam Meeting,'' which continued for more than a decade.
The title proved to a perfect fit because members of the association looked after orphans, senior citizens and children suffering from rare or hard-to-treat diseases through volunteer work.
The assembly attracted more and more Daewoo female staff members, and when Kim Pill-ok headed it back in 1993, membership surpassed the 200 mark.
``In the early 1990s, we had hundreds of members who regularly visited orphanages or nursing homes. I think that the meeting set up a company tradition of voluntarily taking care of the underprivileged,'' Kim recollected.
The Sunbeam Meeting disbanded in 1996 and all of its founding members have retired. But the firm has maintained the tradition of caring about the needy in an official way.
The time-honored initiative of extending a helping hand to society gained fresh momentum as soon as current Chief Executive Im Kee-young took the reins of the brokerage house earlier this year.
In his inaugural press meeting this June, Im promised that Daewoo Securities would put forth efforts to act as a responsible corporate citizen. In the next month, it created the Daewoo Volunteers Group.
A total of six full-time staff members, including two executive vice presidents, focus their entire attention and energy on the group, which is aimed at beefing up the corporate social responsibility programs of Daewoo Securities.
This seems to be the first time that a Korean equities firm has generated an organization that is wholly geared toward taking charge of social responsibility work.
``Currently, all of our 3,000 employees work at least once a year at orphanages or hospitals across the country. Every Saturday, some of Daewoo Securities' employees work there,'' said Kim Seung-chul, secretary general at the volunteers group.
``Plus, about 2,000 employees donate predetermined amounts every month. They are used as an endowment for our programs,'' he said.
As the company is serious about social responsibility, innovative ideas have sprung up, such as the ``double-matching grant,'' as named by the Daewoo employees.
Under the scheme, the company decided to contribute twice the amount donated by the workers. This year, the total amount comes to 2 billion won, a part of which has already been donated to free-of-charge hospitals for migrant workers.
``Our top priority is to support the needy in a consistent fashion rather than giving one-off helps. We will try our best to enable the advent of a new world where none is alienated,'' Kim said.