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| BC Card headquarters in Seoul / Courtesy of BC Card |
Due to the absence of parents or child abuse, some children and teenagers live in shelters. But when they reach a certain age, they have to leave the shelter. They are provided a 10 million won ($7,600) subsidy by the government when they leave, but that is barely enough to rent a tiny studio and they can find it difficult to stand on their own.
BC Tenth Room, a program jointly operated by BC Card and Tenth Room, a local NGO, aims to help such young people. BC Card provides these young people with a housing deposit and rent assistance, household appliances such as refrigerators, air-conditioners and washing machines; and other household goods such as bedding, curtains, crockery and utensils.
The program supports these young people's day-to-day basic needs so they can focus on making long-term plans and preparing themselves for the future. A beneficiary of the BC Tenth Room program recently got a job at a resort, and another landed a job at a big brokerage firm. Others who wished to continue studying have succeeded in gaining admission to college.
On top of the monetary support, BC Tenth Room offers a diverse range of education programs on finance and career development as well as counseling and other art and cultural programs to help recipients stand on their own two feet.
The young people can also build up their personal network under the program, where they can share their problems, big or small, to get to solutions. BC Card and Tenth Room plan to continue supporting their network.
Lee Ho-young, who leads the NGO Tenth Room, won the Talent Award of Korea offered by the Ministry of Education and the Korea Student Aid Foundation in 2022 for such efforts.
"Around 2,500 young people have to leave shelters, left without protection each year. It is critical to provide solutions for fundamental problems such as where they can stay. In cooperation with BC Card, we will help such young people stand together with us, instead of by themselves," Lee said. (Advertorial)
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