Yuhan Foundation Holds the 33rd Yu Jaera Volunteer Award Ceremony

On the morning of the 18th, the Yuhan Foundation announced that it held the 33rd Yu Jaera Volunteer Award ceremony at the Daeyeonsusil on the 4th floor of Yuhan Yanghaeng in Daebang-dong.

Hong Gi-sam, Chairman of Yuhan Academy; Cho Wook-je, CEO of Yuhan Corporation; Moon Young-sook, President of Yangpyeong Hospice Association and Ko Hee-kyung, Director of Moraesigye Oriental Medicine Clinic (Welfare Award recipients); Kim Joong-soo, Chairman of Yuhan Foundation; Song Mi-kyung, Teacher at Daejeon School for the Blind (Education Award recipient); and Song Kyung-ae, Emeritus Professor at Catholic University College of Nursing (Nursing Award recipient), and Yoo Il-ling, Director of Yuhan Academy (from left), are posing for a commemorative photo at the 33rd Yujera Volunteer Award Ceremony.
[Photo by Yuhan Foundation]

This year, the nursing category award went to Song Kyung-ae, Honorary Professor at the Catholic University College of Nursing; the education category award to Song Mi-kyung, teacher at Daejeon School for the Blind; and the welfare category awards to Ko Hee-kyung, director of the Sandglass Korean Medicine Clinic, and Moon Young-sook, representative of the Yangpyeong Hospice Association. Kim Joong-soo, chairman of the Yuhan Foundation, said in his greeting, “The reason why the activities of everyone present here are respected is that you have taken the lead in guiding our society in a direction that creates intangible assets that respect the value of life,” adding, “I hope that social volunteer activities will spread like wildfire and that you will continue to take the lead in making our society healthier.”

Song Kyung-ae, the nursing category awardee, worked as a nurse from 1979 until her retirement in 2021, dedicating herself as a nursing educator. She was recognized as a true nurse who practiced the spirit of sharing by persuading like-minded people to form medical teams to help neighbors in need, migrant workers, and patients in underdeveloped countries, going beyond individual volunteer work.

Song Mi-kyung, the education category awardee, lost her sight midway through her studies at the College of Education due to Behcet’s disease, a rare incurable illness, but overcame her visual impairment and was appointed as a special education teacher, serving for 21 years. She was selected as an awardee for supporting the safe and happy dormitory life of visually impaired students, individually helping students from financially difficult backgrounds, and for her efforts in disability human rights activism and the development of special education for the visually impaired through operating a marriage counseling center.

Ko Hee-kyung, the welfare category awardee, began medical volunteer work in domestic underserved areas after becoming a Korean medicine doctor in 1993 and has devoted herself to medical volunteer activities in Malawi, Kenya, C?te d'Ivoire, and other places in Africa. She was highly praised for leading efforts to widely promote the value and fulfillment of sharing activities, including building hospitals, supporting medical equipment, and providing treatment medicines for patients suffering from Buruli ulcer, an endemic disease in West Africa.

Another welfare category awardee, Moon Young-sook, after completing hospice specialist nurse training in 2003, established the Yangpyeong Hospice Association to support economically and spiritually struggling cancer patients in the Yangpyeong area. She was recognized as a volunteer practicing neighborly love through various sharing activities and efforts to stabilize hospice care in cooperation with public health centers.

The Yu Jaera Volunteer Award was established in 1992 by the Yuhan Foundation to commemorate the life of Mrs. Yu Jaera, daughter of Dr. Yu Il-han, founder of Yuhan Yanghaeng, who lived her life devoted to social service and donated her entire fortune to society through the Yuhan Foundation. Every year, the Yuhan Foundation selects and awards women who have shown exemplary dedication to volunteer service in the fields of nursing, education, and welfare.