15-year partnership with FSS, Salvation Army

Participants pose for a group photo at an event for the Cambodia Children's Heart Surgery Support Project held Monday at Sejong Hospital in Bucheon. From left in the second row, fifth person onward: KB Kookmin Bank President Lee Hwan-ju, Financial Supervisory Service Director General Lee Chan-jin, Salvation Army Commander Kim Byeong-yun, and national figure skating team member Shin Ji-a, sponsored by KB Financial Group, along with officials, Cambodian patients and their families. [KB Kookmin Bank]
Participants pose for a group photo at an event for the Cambodia Children's Heart Surgery Support Project held Monday at Sejong Hospital in Bucheon. From left in the second row, fifth person onward: KB Kookmin Bank President Lee Hwan-ju, Financial Supervisory Service Director General Lee Chan-jin, Salvation Army Commander Kim Byeong-yun, and national figure skating team member Shin Ji-a, sponsored by KB Financial Group, along with officials, Cambodian patients and their families. [KB Kookmin Bank]

KB Kookmin Bank announced Tuesday that its Cambodia Children's Heart Surgery Support Project, now in its 15th year, has provided free surgeries and post-operative care to a total of 113 children.

The bank invited six Cambodian children with heart conditions to South Korea for free surgery and recovery care at Sejong Hospital in Bucheon on Monday.

The event was attended by Financial Supervisory Service Director General Lee Chan-jin, Salvation Army Commander Kim Byeong-yun, KB Kookmin Bank President Lee Hwan-ju, and national figure skating team member Shin Ji-a, sponsored by KB Financial Group. The attendees presented the recovering children with school supply kits, backpacks and stuffed animals, wishing them a speedy recovery.

The Cambodia Children's Heart Surgery Support Project is one of KB Kookmin Bank's flagship global corporate social responsibility initiatives, providing surgical opportunities to children in Cambodia who cannot access treatment due to inadequate medical infrastructure. Since 2012, the bank has carried out the project in partnership with the Financial Supervisory Service and the Salvation Army, supporting surgeries for 113 children to date.

To mark the project's 15th anniversary this year, a video traced the growth of children who had received surgery in previous years. Footage of children who returned to Cambodia and grew up healthy underscored the significance of the long-running initiative, which is recognized as a sustained corporate social responsibility effort that has meaningfully improved the lives of medically underserved communities abroad.

"It is deeply meaningful to have been able to help children regain their health and pursue new dreams over the past 15 years," a KB Kookmin Bank official said. "We will continue our commitment to inclusive finance and social contribution so that children in medically underserved areas can grow up healthy."

Meanwhile, KB Kookmin Bank established the KB Kookmin Bank Hebron Heart Center in Cambodia in 2014, expanding its medical support infrastructure. In 2023, the bank signed an MOU with Samsung Medical Center to extend medical support to children with heart conditions in Indonesia.


forest@heraldcorp.com