Dasomi Foundation

The Dasomi Foundation's mission is to create employment through vocational training for disadvantaged women while offering care services to the elderly. Dasomi has six offices in Korea including Seoul, Incheon, Daejeon, Daegu, Gwangju, and Busan. The Foundation provides specialized patient care education to women, who can then go on to work in hospitals or in the Kyobo Dasomi Care Centres around the country. Dasomi's preference is to train middle-aged women who are in severe hardship.  The 40 hour a year training enables these vulnerable women to certify as quality care givers for the elderly or the disabled or as rehabilitation nurses. Dasomi's care centres provide fee-based nursing service in areas of rehabilitation or general care and will also provide free nursing services to poor patients.

The foundation was established in 2007 as South Korea's first social enterprise with a business model.  Dasomi is a collaboration between a non-profit organisation (the Work Together Foundation), a for-profit enterprise (Kyobo Life Insurance Co. Ltd.) and the South Korean Government (national and local levels). The roles of the 3 stakeholders in providing monetary contributions, support, training, management, consulting and administrative assistance are at follows:

1) Kyobo Life Insurance | provides start up capital, operating expenses, and education fee to the amount of KRW5.4 billion (USD4.3 million) to get the social enterprise's six care centres off the ground. Kyobo staff have also provided management consultation support to help Dasomi develop a business model.

2) Work Together Foundation | provides management and handles daily operations of the social enterprise and is responsible for hiring, training and managing caregivers.

3) Government | provides institutional and administrative assistance at the local levels. The national government provides funds for workers' wages and social insurance from the government's social employment budget.

The successful partnerships of the three aforementioned stakeholders has resulted in the Kyobo Dasomi Care Service. Dasomi is acclaimed as a model case of job creation in Korea's development and has won a number of national awards. Since 2004, Dasomi has helped more than 814 middle aged women find jobs as caregivers providing high quality nursing care to the elderly and others who need rehabilitation. They are currently employing 264 women, empowering them with training, as well as improving the rights and working conditions for them under the Labor Standards Law. Dasomi provides free nursing services for disadvantaged patients and fee-based nursing service for other patients.  In 2007 Dasomi's women gave care to more than 4,400 patients.