In celebration of International Workers’ Day, student volunteer organization Seoul Donghaeng (SDH) launched a campaign to connect part-time workers with employers.
The university volunteering platform Donghaeng, which means “going together” in Korean, launched the Bridge Campaign to connect university students and the society through volunteering activities.
The Bridge Campaign has been created by Donghaeng volunteer groups from Kyung Hee University (KHU), University of Seoul (UOS) and Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS).
“We created this campaign to build bridges on two topics,” said Seo Seung-hwa from Heedoong-I, the SDH society of KHU. “The first bridge project is aimed towards connecting students who work part-time with their employers.”
According to a survey on 1,185 working university students by local job portals, Job Korea and Albamon, more students working part-time job each year, with a 65.9 percent increase in the number of students working in 2018 on the previous year.
This project is being held to mark International Workers’ Day, which was celebrated internationally on May 1, with the aim of connecting working university students and their companies. It also aims to raise awareness of the Labor Standards Act to create a safer work environment. This project started on May 1 and will end on May 15.
The project’s main activity is giving quizzes on laws under the Labor Standards Act. Checklists handed out on participating campuses contained two sections: one for workers and the other for employers.
Participants could review statements based on labor standards act with true or false questions, such as “Employees are not permitted to work over 40 hours per week excluding rest-periods,” and “All workers require an employment contract regardless of how long they are employed for.”
“We gave out leaflets with the checklist at a booth on campus,” Seo said. “Students who completed the checklist with their employers were asked to take a selfie with the leaflet and send it to us. We will randomly pick a few students and give them a coffee coupon.”
The volunteers also plan to build a bridge between rural and urban areas, as well as between students, wider society and other countries through more projects.
SDH was established by Seoul Volunteer Center, which is an affiliated volunteer organization of Seoul City Government that aims to build a better community by supporting, improving and nurturing volunteer activities. Aside from the Bridge Campaign, SDH members meet regularly to plan volunteering activities at their universities.
“We work with 29 universities in Seoul,” said Yoon Hyun-jung, the manager of SDH. “We created this to give university students a chance to run their own volunteer program to grow leadership skills from these experiences. Currently, we have planned 139 volunteering activities including helping North Korean students, works to reduce fine dust, supporting school workers, and many more.”
Additionally, Ewha Donghaeng (EDH) is also part of SDH. According to Song Soo-gyeong from EDH, they organized activities like handing out roses for Coming of Age Day last year.