On the 6th, a special sports day was held at the multipurpose hall of the Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance Global Campus in Ilsandong-gu, Goyang, Gyeonggi Province. More than 150 teenagers from different schools and regions coordinated to keep the ball from falling and matched one another’s movements. Many of the children running and laughing together on the court came from multicultural families, but background had no meaning for them.

The event held that day was the ‘2026 Samsung Multicultural Youth Sports Class Summer Camp’. As part of its social contribution efforts, the Samsung Group supports multicultural and non-multicultural youth in choosing one of soccer, basketball, volleyball, badminton, or tee-ball to learn together. Now in its third year, this camp was organized as a time for youths who took part in classes in the first half of the year to gather in one place, enjoy the sports they have learned, and connect with one another.

150 multicultural and non-multicultural youths from different schools and regions move in sync
Seven events including ‘Gather the Dreams’… “I do not know their background, they are just friends I do things with”
All nine indicators measuring social skills and emotion improved among youths who took the classes

It was not only the children who came to the camp. Employees from nine affiliates, including Cheil Worldwide, Samsung Biologics, Hotel Shilla, S-1, Samsung Medical Center, and Samsung Welstory, took part, mainly through their in-house sports clubs. Those who have been involved in the ‘special activities’ joined the day’s events in groups of eight to ten per team, forming squads with the children. This year, players from the Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance Bluefangs volleyball team also joined, adding significance.

The first event of the sports day was ‘Gather the Dreams’, in which many people combined their strength to move a ball. All team members stood facing each other, each side holding the ends of a long cloth. When a large ball was placed in the center of the cloth, the children shook it up and down on cue to send the ball rolling to the opposite side. The ball on the cloth symbolized a ‘dream’.

If even one person let go, the ball would drop straight to the floor. The children moved while keeping both sides of the cloth in balance. “Let us switch places” and “We need to bring it down now” passed naturally between them, and when someone’s movement slowed, they waited and matched their rhythm.

Events requiring cooperation continued. Next, in ‘Riding the Dream,’ teams of three mounted horse-shaped tubes and rounded the turning point. Matching one another’s movements mattered more than speed. If one person moved first, the balance could wobble, so the children shouted “Let us go together” as they synchronized.

The volleyball event ‘Onggijonggi Strike’ also had teams of three. The first child sent the ball over the net; the second carried it through a limbo bar and handed it to the third, and the last hit the target.

One of the most popular events, soccer, was played in a ‘territory-grabbing’ format in which teams knocked over the opposing side’s rubber cones with the ball to widen their ground. Children splitting into attackers and goalkeepers discussed when to shoot and whom to block, drawing up team strategies. It was a game where coordinating with teammates mattered more than individual ball skills.

Of the seven events contested that day, not a single one could be done alone. No game could be finished by a single skilled child forging ahead.

Indeed, in the impressions shared by the children at the camp, the word ‘together’ was ever-present. Kim Ha-jun (a pseudonym), a sixth-grader from Jung District, Incheon, is a youth with a migration background, with one parent from the United States.

He said, “At school I have too few friends, so there is not much I can do, but here there are many friends, which I like,” adding, “It is fun to move together and cheer for one another.”

The boundaries were already gone. Which country someone was from was beyond the children’s concern. Han Su-jeong (a pseudonym), a fourth-grader from Seodaemun District, Seoul, said, “I do not really know whether my friends are from multicultural families. They are just friends I do things with.”

The experiences the children had accumulated on the field were also confirmed in writing. Earlier, in May, Samsung and Save the Children held the first diary, letter, and essay contest for youths participating in the sports classes, their guardians, and staff at partner institutions.

A total of 102 works were submitted, 54% of them by youths with migration backgrounds, spanning 16 countries including China, Japan, Vietnam, and Uzbekistan. After review, 11 winners were selected, including recipients of the Minister of Gender Equality and Family Award and the Cheil Worldwide CEO Award, and Minister Won Min-kyung of the Ministry of Gender Equality attended the awards ceremony that day.

The winning entries captured the changes the children experienced firsthand through the sports classes. One sixth-grader wrote that at first they were worried conversation would not go smoothly because there were no multicultural friends around them.

But by talking with friends they met in class, they naturally grew close. They wrote, “I was angry to hear that such wonderful friends are sometimes discriminated against just because they are multicultural.”

In the piece by Choi Won-ju, a social worker at the Namdong-gu Family Center in Incheon, the process by which that change takes shape was described. He wrote, “At the very first class, the multicultural kids sat together with other multicultural kids, and the non-multicultural kids sat together by themselves, but as group activities had them sit mixed at one table and exchange passes on the court, they naturally began to mingle,” adding, “Then one child casually asked, ‘Huh? Were you Vietnamese, hyung?’ in a matter-of-fact way.”

Such changes also appeared in the data. A pre- and post-participation survey by a research team led by Professor Yang Kyung-eun of the Social Welfare Department at Sungkonghoe University of 207 youths who took part last year in the ‘Samsung Multicultural Youth Sports Class’ found improvements across all nine indicators measuring sociality and emotion.

Conflict resolution rose from 81.0 to 96.3, and self-affirmation from 83.6 to 93.5. Measures of cooperation, empathy, and multicultural inclusiveness also increased.

Notably, social withdrawal dropped sharply from 29.7 to 9.7, and depression from 24.3 to 4.9.

For six hours until 4 p.m., when the special sports day concluded, laughter never left the gymnasium.