POSCO Corporate Citizenship Friends Participate in 'Building Homes of Hope' Construction

Rolling Up Sleeves to Improve Residential Environment in Gwangyang Area

Donation Delivery and Participation in Construction Volunteer Activities

‘POSCO Corporate Citizen Friends,’ a social contribution activity involving POSCO and employees of POSCO partner suppliers, rolled up their sleeves to participate in a house-building volunteer activity in the Gwangyang area, forgetting even the scorching heat.

POSCO Corporate Citizen Friends is a sharing organization launched in 2019, representing partner companies that are like friends sharing the corporate citizen management philosophy. It is an activity started by POSCO, POSCO’s excellent suppliers (POSCO Honored Partner, PHP), and general suppliers wishing to participate in social contribution in local communities coming together with a shared purpose.

POSCO Corporate Citizenship Friends are taking a commemorative photo in front of the Habitat joint housing construction site in Wolpa Village, Gwangyang.
Photo by Gwangyang Steelworks

In particular, this year, Corporate Citizen Friends newly launched the “Friends New Home” project to support housing-vulnerable groups. The “Friends New Home” project supports repairing and building houses for housing-vulnerable groups in the Pohang and Gwangyang areas in collaboration with local specialized organizations. In Gwangyang, they are constructing houses for housing-vulnerable groups together with the Korea Habitat Jeonnam Eastern Branch, and in April, they donated 20 million KRW at the groundbreaking ceremony.

On the 23rd of this month, POSCO and supplier employees directly went to the construction site in Usan-ri, Gwangyang, where labor was needed. About 110 employees from POSCO’s Equipment Materials Purchasing Office, Raw Materials Office, and 22 excellent equipment, materials, and raw material supplier companies in the Gwangyang area worked together, sweating as they volunteered assembling wooden structures such as door frames, window frames, and roof trusses needed for the houses.

Kim Tae-eok, head of POSCO’s Equipment Materials Purchasing Office, said, “It was a valuable time to get one step closer to the local community through Corporate Citizen Friends activities with supplier companies,” and added, “We hope that neighbors will have happy homes in the houses we helped build.”

Following this, Kim Myung-hoon, head of the Gwangyang Corporate Citizen Friends Volunteer Group (CEO of Gwangyang Co., Ltd.), stated, “All Corporate Citizen Friends participated wholeheartedly in Habitat’s project to provide comfortable homes for those in need. We hope the warmth of sharing is well conveyed to our neighbors.”

Korea Habitat plans to build two buildings with three floors each, totaling 12 households, for multicultural families, people with disabilities, and descendants of independence activists through this house-building project, and will select residents after a screening process.

Meanwhile, POSCO Corporate Citizen Friends is leading efforts to solve problems faced by local communities and carrying out various social contribution activities. In addition to the “Friends New Home” project, they have been steadily continuing the “Good Prepayment” event for five years, where a certain amount is prepaid at traditional market stores and the usage rights are given to vulnerable groups in the community. This year’s Chuseok holiday will also see activities to revitalize the local commercial district.

Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Heo Seon-sik hss79@asiae.co.kr

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.