Red Ribbon Social Cooperative Wins Excellent Social Economy Enterprise Award... Community for AIDS-Infected Individuals' Independence

On the 22nd, at the ‘2024 Amazon Web Services (AWS) 4th Excellent Social Economy Enterprise Awards & 2nd Social Economy Enterprise Woman Star Discovery and Welfare Support’ ceremony, Red Ribbon Social Cooperative received the Excellent Social Economy Enterprise Award.

The 4th Excellent Social Economy Enterprise Awards, jointly hosted by Amazon Web Services, Korea Social Enterprise Promotion Agency, and Social Economy Activation Support Center, have been recognizing since 2021 IT social economy enterprises creating outstanding social value, as well as social economy enterprises and female social entrepreneurs aiming to solve social issues through innovative business models for gender equality and protection of socially vulnerable groups.

Red Ribbon Social Cooperative is receiving the Excellent Social Economy Enterprise Award.

In 2024, six companies including Red Ribbon Social Cooperative, Defnuri, WizOn, Ilbaeumteo, Cooperative Maeil Maeil Jeulgeowo, and Sikpancheonsa received awards.

Marking its 10th anniversary, Red Ribbon Social Cooperative is a community of HIV/AIDS-infected individuals working for their independence and awareness improvement, and is Korea’s first AIDS social cooperative.

Although HIV has become a chronic disease, HIV/AIDS-infected individuals are still isolated in society due to discrimination and prejudice. Red Ribbon, which had been supporting them in various ways such as counseling and shelters, felt the need not only to support HIV-infected individuals but also to connect them to self-sufficiency and labor so that they can stand as members of society, leading to the establishment of the social cooperative.

From the preparatory stage of the cooperative’s founding, infected individuals themselves have taken the lead in planning and executing projects, and both non-infected and infected individuals have participated together in various projects such as the H On Dream Audition. Through this series of processes, infected and non-infected individuals form a community to restore social relationships and regain autonomy for HIV-infected individuals.

Representative activities of Red Ribbon Social Cooperative include operating the ‘Social Cafe Big Hands’ main store and nine directly managed stores to improve AIDS awareness and support HIV-infected individuals’ independence. They also operate the HIV-infected social housing ‘Kkumdamchae’ and, since 2023, have been recognized for excellence as a roastery cafe, selected as an official return gift for the Hometown Consumption Donation Program by Daegu City and Daegu Dong-gu Office.

Additionally, alongside zero-waste projects for a sustainable environment, they operate the zero-waste cafe ‘Green Groove,’ created by a consortium of social economy entities in the cafe and bakery sectors in the Daegu area. They launched the multi-use container service ‘Reusable Habit REBIT,’ aimed at reducing disposable product use and promoting reuse habits, and developed the related application ‘REBIT’ and a multi-use container washing facility to address the growing environmental pollution problem.

Regarding Red Ribbon Social Cooperative’s award for Excellent Social Economy Enterprise, Director Kim Ji-young stated, “Our efforts to create jobs for HIV-infected individuals and improve awareness, helping their independence, as well as our sustainable environmental initiatives through multi-use cup washing and rental businesses for carbon neutrality, have been recognized.” She added, “This achievement was made possible through the participation and activities of HIV-infected individuals and cooperative members despite many difficulties.”

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