Residents Provide Care Services... Yeongdeungpo-gu Fosters Care Cooperative

Consulting from Establishment to Operation of Social Economy Organizations, Designing Business Models... Providing Various Services such as Cooking and Emergency Care for Residents

[Asia Economy Reporter Jong-il Park] Yeongdeungpo-gu (District Mayor Chae Hyun-il) is promoting the ‘Social Service Sector Resident Participation Care Cooperative Development Project,’ where residents directly provide essential living services to the local community to eliminate welfare blind spots.

Recently, the care gap for vulnerable groups has widened due to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), causing various social problems. More than half of the cooling shelters closed due to COVID-19, leaving elderly people without places to go during this year’s severe heatwave. Vulnerable groups in society, including children left in care blind spots due to incomplete school openings, are going through even more difficult times.

The district’s ‘Social Service Sector Resident Participation Care Cooperative Development Project’ is a program that fills a dense local care network led by residents even amid such crises. The goal is to create a resident-participation social economy organization that can flexibly respond to crisis situations like COVID-19 by having local residents directly find and provide necessary services.

First, the district selected one project team each in two recruitment fields: ‘Cooking Care’ and ‘Emergency Care.’

The project executing organization, ‘Neighborhood Power Plant Cooperative,’ together with the Yeongdeungpo Social Economy Network, provides education and consulting necessary for establishing a business, including ▲cooperative establishment and operation ▲communication techniques ▲service management membership operation plans.

The ‘Cooking Care’ project team, based on over 10 years of experience in the food service industry, offers care services using cooking recipes and homemade food, including ▲developing balanced meal menus with various nutrients ▲exchanging information and joint purchasing of eco-friendly food ▲companionship services for elderly living alone and traditional food education ▲customized food services for multi-child, dual-income, and single-person households.

The ‘Emergency Care’ project team, leveraging experience operating after-school care classes in nearby elementary schools, plans to operate emergency care services tailored to local demand, including ▲time-based emergency care services for infants and lower-grade elementary students ▲culture, arts, and traditional etiquette programs based on care ▲dispatching a ‘smart auntie’ to provide lifestyle care guides.

With Yeongdeungpo-gu being selected for the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s first-ever ‘2020 Social Service Sector Social Economy Activation Project,’ an opportunity has been created to discover a Yeongdeungpo-style local care model under the government’s ‘Community Care Promotion Plan.’

In 2019, the district established the Social Economy Division under the Future Vision Promotion Team and has been continuously promoting various projects with residents to revitalize social economy organizations based on the local community and realize social economy in daily life, including the ‘Local Problem-Solving Social Venture Team Development Project,’ ‘Co-living Project in Apartment Complexes,’ ‘Resident Technology School,’ and ‘Apartment Life Workshop.’

Additionally, the number of social enterprises in the region increased about 1.6 times from 43 (as of January 2019) to 71 (as of May 2020). This indicates that social enterprises based in the region are steadily increasing, and residents’ awareness of the social economy has also improved.

Yeongdeungpo District Mayor Chae Hyun-il said, “I hope our district’s care network becomes denser through the process where residents themselves plan and provide social services,” and added, “I hope more sustainable local management companies will emerge where residents can directly participate in providing social services.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.