‘Out-of-School Youth’ Participate in Formulating Out-of-School Policies

Ulsan City Appoints 11 Members to 'Kkumdeulim Youth Group' ... Expanding Participation in Policy Development

Ulsan City Hall. On the 6th, Ulsan City will select 11 out-of-school youths and hold an appointment ceremony for the Dream Youth Group.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yong-woo] The group of ‘out-of-school youth’ participating in the establishment of youth policies in Ulsan City is set to begin full-scale activities.

Ulsan City announced that it will hold the ‘2020 Dream Dream Youth Group Appointment Ceremony’ at 4 p.m. on the 6th in the International Conference Room on the 4th floor of the City Hall main building.

The Dream Dream Youth Group is a group of out-of-school youth created to encourage their participation in discovering and implementing policies.

Eleven members were selected, and this year, due to COVID-19, the activity period will be shortened to the second half of 2020.

The main roles include collecting opinions and identifying needs of out-of-school youth, monitoring and discovering cases of rights violations against out-of-school youth, monitoring policies and proposing policies for out-of-school youth, and promoting awareness improvement of out-of-school youth.

Youth outside of school better understand what their peers in similar situations need. Ulsan City has reflected their needs in city policies.

To prevent out-of-school youth from being marginalized, Ulsan City proactively provided free one meal per day starting in 2019, fully funded by the city budget?the first in the nation. The total number of beneficiaries was 11,104.

In 2020, the meal unit price was doubled, supporting 5,274 people in the first half of the year.

Additionally, through out-of-school youth support centers located in the city and districts/counties, various programs are operated, including academic re-entry support, social entry program activities, health support programs, and individual counseling support.

In particular, Ulsan City’s ‘Great Program for Supporting Youth in Crisis,’ a special city policy initiated in 2017, was selected in 2020 as a project by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family and changed to the ‘Local Government Youth Safety Net Operation Project.’ It is being expanded to Nam-gu and Buk-gu to systematically support youth in crisis, such as those attempting suicide or self-harm.

Lee Hyung-woo, Director of Welfare, Women, and Health Bureau of Ulsan City, said, “We will do our best to actively discover and help youth in crisis and will lead the operation of the local government youth safety net project to continuously protect children and youth exposed to various risks such as suicide and self-harm attempts, abuse, or school violence.”

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