BC Card (President and CEO Chae Jong-jin, www.bccard.com) made an announcement on July 31st that they have engaged in volunteer activities to promote the economic self-sufficiency of a remote village in Indonesia.

In 2016, BC Card selected a remote village with low economic self-sufficiency among various regions of Indonesia, and supplied coffee tree saplings and built coffee production and processing facilities, based on a fair trade business model that had been developed in consideration of the regional characteristics.

BC Card’s Red Food Cart Volunteer Group paid a visit once again this year to harvest coffee cherries, improve the state-owned forests to further expand the coffee cultivation site, and conducted art and physical education programs for kindergarten and elementary school students who lack learning opportunities.

BC Card plans to provide continued support to the village to promote economic self-efficiency, and expand the scope of its support to include various other regions in Indonesia.

This year, volunteer activities were also carried out to help the poor in Jakarta. There were 35 volunteers including not only the members of the BC Card Red Food Cart Volunteer Group, comprised of ordinary citizens of Korea, and employees of BC Card, but also the employees of Mitra Transaksi Indonesia (MTI), a joint venture established between BC Card and Bank Mandiri, headquartered in Indonesia.

Choi Seok-jin (Senior Vice President), the Head of the Communications Department at BC Card, stated, “The gap between the rich and poor and the urban and rural areas is enormous in Indonesia,” and added, “We’ll continue our social contribution activities and cooperate with MTI to contribute to the local economic development in Indonesia.”

Kumpul, the head of the Nasicity Coffee Association based in the remote village (Candiyasan¹) in Indonesia, said, “We harvested high-quality coffee cherries this year, using the coffee production facilities built by BC Card in 2016. I anticipate that these will be the fruits of hope that will help develop our village.”

¹Candiyasan: A farming village, with a population of around 700 (164 households), located on the island of Java in Indonesia. It has low economic self-sufficiency, due to limited income, and the local children have inadequate learning opportunities due to the substandard educational environment, evidenced by the absence of high schools.