KB pitches 'hope' drive to help underprivileged

Scores of children from low-income and multiracial families pose for a photo after they attended the KB Star Economy and Finance Camp, an event held from Feb. 25-27 in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, to help underprivileged people. / Courtesy of KB Financial Group

By Choi Kyong-ae

KB Financial Group is pitching the “hope campaign” to help underprivileged children, foreign workers and multiracial families through education and financial support, the banking group said Tuesday.

“We will help less privileged children continue their studies and gain access to cultural activities. And we will strengthen our social contribution activities for multi-racial families and foreign workers to better mingle with Koreans,” KB Financial said in a statement.

As part of the efforts, KB Financial has carried out a series of “multi-racial” projects by holding a camp for 200 children from multiracial families in May and by operating a Korean language school to help educate those children, it said.

KB Financial currently operates the “KB Star Dream Volunteering Team” in which executives and employees teach less privileged people basic economic knowledge and jointly participate in cultural and physical education events.

There are eight education programs in which KB Financial executives and employees visit distant elementary, middle and high schools and child care centers across the nation to lecture on the economy and finance.

Moreover, KB Financial offers hundreds of university students from low-income families and have difficulty in paying their school expenses a chance to teach younger students and earn a scholarship from the banking group.

In case of natural disasters such as typhoon and floods, the KB volunteering team helps deliver relief goods to displaced and damaged people and takes part in rescue activities.

Over three years, the number of KB executives and employees who joined the team’s relief activities rose to 80,934 in 2014 from 79,481, according to KB Financial data.

The financial group has also sent bicycles to children in underdeveloped countries in Asia in an extended global volunteering activity of its employees.

KB Financial is not only helping less privileged children but also helping elder people who live alone and do not have an access to regular treatment for their diseases.

“We have partnered with medical experts to operate several programs to help prevent the aged from falling victim to dementia,” the statement said.