This article relies on an unique essay by Eunsung Lee from Samsung Electronics’ Mobile Communications Division,
and was edited by Samsung Newsroom
Last February, Samsung Electronics introduced its imaginative and prescient for its world citizenship program – Enabling People. The firm has been working quite a few volunteer youth education schemes for over a decade, and for the reason that current announcement has been strengthening the applications it gives within the pursuits of enabling younger residents the world over.
For Samsung’s worker volunteer initiative OneWeek, round 200 Samsung workers traveled to 6 totally different international locations – Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Nepal and Hungary – to interact in collaborative actions with native communities.
I used to be a part of the second volunteer workforce to journey who visited Kazakhstan, a rustic 27 occasions the dimensions of my native Korea however with lower than half the inhabitants. There, we participated in actions like exhibiting youngsters the right way to use computer systems and instructing them about coding. I used to be happy to have been given the chance as, in an effort to participate in Samsung OneWeek, workers must be prepared to make use of up 5 days of their annual depart – however competitors for this system was nonetheless fierce.
Getting to Know the Kazakh Community
Despite in depth preparation and fixed evaluation of our schooling supplies in the course of the lengthy journey to Kazakhstan, we have been nonetheless inevitably nervous as soon as we arrived to greet the youngsters we might be volunteering for and spending time with.
At first assembly, they appeared cautious, however at the same time as we formulated one of the best ways to introduce ourselves, they shortly broke out into boisterous cries of welcome.
Following that, the native college students entertained us with songs and dance performances that they had ready. Us OneWeek members supplied snacks and toys to the combination, and shortly, our nervous first assembly had change into a celebration.
One member of our workforce even broke into humorous faces to make the youngsters snort, and shortly sufficient we have been chatting and having enjoyable as if we had identified one another for much longer than a matter of hours.
Education Against All the Odds
After this chance to get to know the youngsters, we busied ourselves with immersing ourselves of their every day lives. By distinction to the college begin occasions we have been accustomed to again in Korea, we learnt that these Kazakh youngsters arrived to highschool round 10am.
In order to totally perceive this every day routine, we traveled on the college bus that departs their space, a village close to the border, at 6am each morning. Having traveled alongside a mud highway for hours to achieve the Mynjylyk space, we encountered a navy barrack full with guard checks, an impediment on this every day journey that’s as a result of proximity of the border. Having gone by this sobering expertise, we have been completely satisfied to lastly greet the youngsters and be part of them as they started the college day.
Technology for Good
Once on the childrens’ college, our volunteering actions started in earnest. We taught youngsters the right way to use Scratch, a common coding methodology. Despite the problem of the topic, the language barrier and the ensuing sluggish price of progress, the youngsters have been enthusiastic and desperate to be taught all through – we discovered ourselves usually conveying key messages to one another by physique language alone.
Given {that a} main technique of employment on this mountainous space of Kazakhstan is livestock rearing, we additionally held academic IT periods for native nomads, a lot of whom had by no means even seen a pc earlier than however who approached the duty with simply as a lot enthusiasm and dedication to be taught as the youngsters had.
Experiences from the Heart
Our time in Kazakhstan was a present to all of us who went, however we have been particularly touched when, upon the conclusion of our time with them, one baby introduced us a present of hand-milked native horse milk. Such…
