GS Caltex, the nation’s second-largest refinery, has strengthened social contribution activities at home and abroad to fulfill its corporate social responsibilities since 2005 under the vision of “making the world beautiful through energy sharing.”

This year, one of the firm’s key domestic social contribution activities is a project to counsel children from single-parent families or who have been bullied.

“The company launched a task force last year to develop a corporate contribution model for children who have mental health problems as they are emerging as a new isolated group in modern Korean society,” a company official said.

The energy giant debuted its first project designed to help these children called “Talk Talk” in March this year following a partnership with related nongovernmental organizations, including Good Neighbors, along with local governments and civic groups. 

Under the project, the company developed a unique treatment program for children who suffer from depression, which uses a variety of art forms such as fine arts, dance, music and performance art. In addition, it developed an education program to cultivate professional supervisors to run the Talk Talk program nationwide and in a sustainable manner.

GS Caltex ran the first Talk Talk camp for children in need in April at Yaeulmaru, a company-owned art and performance center in Yeosu, South Jeolla Province.

The firm opened Yaeulmaru last year as part of its commitment to Yeosu, where its gigantic refinery complex is located. The center, designed by renowned French architect Dominique Perrault, has two theaters equipped with state-of-the-art lighting and sound systems.

Besides a camp for children, the company runs 13 Talk Talk centers nationwide with its partners. As of June this year, about 640 children with a mental problem joined the art treatment program. Among them, 21 percent of children who needed special care received one-on-one counseling, the company said.

“We are going to offer the Talk Talk program to about 10,000 children by 2015,” the company said in a press release. In addition, the company said it will be actively engaged with policymakers and political circles to raise social attention for these children.

GS Caltex’s social responsibility activities are not limited to Korea. The firm has expanded its commitments to societies overseas as a global corporate citizen. It shares energy in developing countries facing chronic shortages.

One such program is located in Cambodia, where the company’s second-largest refinery is located. GS Caltex first entered Cambodia for exploration and a production project in 2003.

GS Caltex runs a program to help Cambodia generate solar power. Despite affluent sunshine year around, Cambodia lacked the lack of technology and infrastructure for power generation of the renewable resource.

Under the project titled Global Energy Plus, GS Caltex opened a solar power energy center in Battambang, Cambodia, in partnership with the Korea International Cooperation Agency and Good Neighbor last year and has provided the “appropriate” solar power technology tailored to Cambodia’s infrastructure.

The center is in charge of manufacturing sales of solar power generation products based on local labor.

GS Caltex also provides solar-powered lamps to Cambodian households for free, while cultivating Cambodian experts in the solar power field.

“The company’s global CSR is aimed to help a developing country to seek sustainable growth. Reflected in the Cambodian case, we will continue to develop a global CSR model to give back to society,” the company said.

By Seo Jee-yeon (jyseo@heraldcorp.com)