The Kakdang Welfare Foundation was started in 1986 as the ‘Korea Volunteer Competency Development Research Association’ by Dr. Kim Ok Lah. Dr. Kim believed volunteering has tremendous power to change society into a more beautiful world.
Kakdang Social Welfare Foundation consists of the Korean Association for Volunteer Effort, Korean Association for Death Education & Counseling, and Korean Association for Rainbow Hospice.
Over the past 30 years, DAC has donated more than KRW 2 billion to the Kakdang Welfare Foundation. In 2015, DAC CEO Jake Lah was inaugurated as chairman of the Kakdang Welfare Foundation.
Korean Association for Volunteer Effort
Kakdang Social Welfare Foundation independently developed and implemented a volunteer training program to achieve the purpose of its establishment. First, according to the business report for the first half of 1988, reported to the Board of Directors on July 11, 1988, volunteers were recruited, trained, and deployed for purposeful activities, and re-education in the aspect of follow-up management was actively and systematically carried out.
Korean Association for Rainbow Hospice
Korean Association for Rainbow Hospice operates a home hospice dispatching volunteers to care for home cancer patients and bereaved families. They take the Hospice Volunteer Qualification Test hosted by the Korea Hospice Council, recommended by the main body, and receive a certificate of qualification. As of 2017, 5,864 students have completed the 57th training, and 221 are volunteering at 31 hospitals, facilities, and homes.
Korean Association for Death Education & Counseling
Korean Association for Death Education & Counseling started in 1991, five years after the foundation of the Kakdang Social Welfare Foundation, as a gathering of Honorary Chairman Kim Ok-Lah and a few acquaintances who lost loved ones. From an open lecture to spread discourse on death to the current death preparation education leadership course, the Korean Association for Death Education & Counseling has continued its efforts to understand death and heal sorrow. Also, through the spread of death preparation education, we have been helping more people to reflect on life and death and make life more beautiful. In 2016, we started counseling for mourning as part of the healing process.
Grief Counseling and Pychotheraphy Center
Kakdang Social Welfare Foundation established the Letter of intent for life-sustaining treatment in 1991 and has continuously provided education on death with dignity, self-determination, and advance medical directives through open lectures and seminars on death and training for death preparation leaders.
Kakdang Social Welfare Foundation was established by the Ministry of Health and Welfare from October 16, 2017, to January 15, 2018 after the National Assembly passed the <Act on Hospice and Palliative Care and Life-sustaining Medical Decisions for Patients at End of Life> on January 8, 2016. Following the implementation of the letter of intent for life-sustaining pilot project, from February 4, 2018, we have been consulting and writing as a pre-order letter of intent registration agency designated by the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
