February 25 Children in Kedungnoyo, Indonesia witnessed electronic light for the first time in their lives.  Kedungnoyo, which takes about five hours by car from the Indonesia’s second biggest city Surabaya to get to, is one of the poorest cities in Indonesia where about 223 people are making money by growing and selling crops. Since the electricity does not reach this town, the residents have never used any electronic goods or light at nighttime.

The Korea Green Foundation helped bring light to the town by pushing for the campaign to help cities in Asia without electricity to have sunlight-generated lamps. The foundation started this campaign because it realized that it is necessary for a lot of poor cities in Asia to have not only water, but light to enhance their quality of life.

According to the statistics released by the International Energy Agency (IEA), about 600 million people in Asia have no approach to the electricity. The statistics reveal that about 300 million people in India, 90 million in Bangladesh, 60 million in Indonesia, 50 million in Pakistan, 20 million in the Philippines, and 4 million in China, do not have any electricity.

The Korea Green Foundation decided to push for this campaign in April 2012, and devised the plan to distribute about 10,000 sunlight-generated lamps to people in Indonesia, Nepal, Cambodia, Bangladesh, India, and Myanmar from November 2012 to end of this year.

The sunlight-generated lamp is designed to last almost ten hours once it is charged for about four hours under the sunlight. It costs $200,000 to make one lamp, but once it is made, it does not cost any extra money to use, and this product can be used semi-permanently.

Korea Green Foundation is planning to raise about $2 billion to finish its campaign successfully, and it has already secured half a billion dollars from Korea’s Samsung Group.

The foundation was founded in 2002 as Korea’s first public foundation aiming to conserve the environment. It focuses on educational and cultural programs to raise awareness for urgent environmental issues. For that purpose, it annually holds the Green Film Festival in Seoul to introduce various environment-related films to the world, publishes books dealing with environmental issues, organizes forums and educational programs for children to adults, and runs the Eco Shop with eco-friendly products.

Image Courtesy : Timekin

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The Samsung group is poised to start a campaign to curb excessive corporate drinking. Forcing employees to drink more as punishment for being late, to finish their glass at once, drinking alcohol out of a large bowl; these are the three bad drinking practices Samsung has pointed out. It is reported that the company, when assessing worker performance, is even planning to disadvantage those who force co-workers to drink or cause a problem because of alcohol. The campaign will be put into practice in all of Samsung’s subsidiaries.

On September 19, a source within Samsung told Toonari Post, “It is impossible for us to become a leading company in the world with a drinking culture like this. Workers at the Samsung group usually believe that they cannot succeed if they are not good at drinking, because drinking with co-workers is usually considered a chance for people to communicate and build social relationships. We are going to get rid of this culture by starting a new campaign. From now on, we will punish people who make problems derived from drinking and negatively influence their co-workers. It doesn’t matter whether he or she is a high-level worker or not.”

Many years ago, many Korean people believed that drinking culture was a residual product of the country’s economic success because workers could communicate and share their ideas and views while drinking together.

However, people are now blaming the Korean drinking culture for aiding to workers’ stress and lowering their willingness to work rather than improve their productivity.

The Samsung official added, “Bad drinking culture has brought Samsung’s workers lots of burdens, making them unable to maintain a balance between work and home. Family members of workers are also a victim of their bad drinking culture.”

In January of next year Samsung plans to educate its workers on how to have good drinking culture and how to get benefits from it. Lectures on topics such as ‘Relationship between drinking and bad health’ and ‘Bad effects of alcohol on the body,’ will be included in its education course.

Samsung expects that the education course will maximize its campaign’s efficacy, because all workers at Samsung should take these courses.

Samsung also plans to offer its workers more opportunities to enjoy other activities such as sports, movies, or plays in order to still be able to lessen their stress while deterring them from drinking.

The 27-year-old Kim, who works for Samsung Electronics, said, “I love and support the Samsung group’s idea. I have been forced to drink by my co-workers before, even though I get easily drunk. I have gotten a lot of stress because of it, and I know there are many people like me at all Samsung’s affiliates. I believe the decision of Samsung will improve workers’ productivity and bring lots of advantages to them.”

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