[By NBC-1TV H. J Yook] Citibank Korea (CKI, CEO Ha, Yung-ku, http://www.citibank.co.kr) and JA Korea (CEO Kim Tae-joon, www.jakorea.org), an international non-profit organization, held a presentation session on “Citi-JA Hero Program” at Kyunghyang Arthill in Jeongdong, Seoul in the morning of Monday, Jul. 22, 2013. Citi-JA Hero Program is aimed at supporting teenagers from multi-cultural families, and a total of 200 people including multi-racial teenagers, undergraduate students who served as their study mentors, and the global bank’s executives and employees joined the session, and Ha, Yung-ku, CEO of CKI and Kim, Tae-joon, CEO of the international NGO also attended the occasion to encourage the teenagers from multi-cultural households and the volunteers.

The presentation session began with an activity report for the past one year followed by an awarding ceremony for best mentors and mentees and watching a musical performance. Pil. Gam-gong, a 1st grader of Hwanil High School who participated in the program expressed his satisfaction with the program saying, “The Hero Mentoring Program not only helped me with study but gave me the opportunity to visit universities and experience different options of careers. More importantly, I had lots of chances to talk to many friends. It was such a good program.” Pil has joined the program together with his twin brother Pil, Gam-seong who is also a 1st grader of the same school since they were in the second semester of the 3rd grade in middle school. Thanks to the program, Gam-gong and Gam-seong graduated middle schools in the 11th and the 5th place of the whole school respectively, which were their best grades ever. Choi, Myeong-ok, 2nd grader of Kachiwool Middle School who show increased sense of self-value (self-esteem) than pre-test after this program, expressed affection towards her mentor saying, “My mentor gave me wonderful pieces of advice on my relationship with friends, and he always listened to me very attentively. I want to be like him, especially his eyes and voice.”