Doosan Group's Yonkang Foundation has offered KRW340 million (USD342,362) to Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education for its Elementary Childcare Program that is run for children from marginalised families.

The program was established to care for children from families while both parents were at work. It is being run in 215 classes in 166 Seoul schools.

YH Park, chairman of Doosan Group's Yonkang Foundation, hopes the donation will make a difference.

"The first step at easing social polarisation [is] bridging the educational gap between people of diverse income disparities," Park says.

The Yonkang Foundation is an academic and cultural foundation established in 1978 to support scholarship, academic and cultural programs. It plans to contribute over KRW1 billion (USD1 million) to the Elementary Childcare Program by 2010. This month, the foundation provided KRW1 billion (USD1 million) in scholarships to 355 elementary, middle and high school and university students who excelled academically despite difficult personal circumstances.

Other scholarships offered by the foundation include the Chinese Studies Research Institute Scholarship, Doosan Children Sports Scholarship, Flood-affected Areas Scholarship and Scholarship for Korean Departments at Famous Foreign Universities. The foundation has also donated millions to cancer research (Forkliftaction.com News #258).

Doosan Group is the largest shareholder of forklift manufacturer Doosan Infracore.