Gwangju City Launches Pilot Project for Smoke-Free School Routes at 10 Locations Including Geumbu and Yuan Elementary Schools

Gwangju City Hall

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City announced on the 30th that it has been conducting a pilot project to create ‘No-Smoking Zones on School Routes’ to prevent secondhand smoke damage to children and adolescents from the 1st of this month until the end of this year, in cooperation with the City Office of Education and autonomous districts.

The city initially planned to establish pilot sections at one school per autonomous district, totaling five schools, but due to high responses from schools and parents, it consulted with the Office of Education and expanded the pilot sections to 10 schools.

The target schools are Geumbu Elementary School, Jobong Elementary School, Yuan Elementary School, Daechon Jungang Elementary School, Junghung Elementary School, Misan Elementary School, Wolgye Middle School, Salesio Girls’ High School, Seoseok High School, and Geumpa Technical High School, totaling 10 locations.

In the no-smoking zones on school routes, guide signs and banners are installed to create a smoke-free environment, and after a grace period according to ordinances of each autonomous district, fines will be imposed if smoking is detected.

Although school facilities are designated as no-smoking areas under the ‘National Health Promotion Act,’ the surrounding school routes are not no-smoking zones, leading to continuous demands from parents for the health of children and adolescents from secondhand smoke and for the creation of clean and safe smoke-free school routes.

Accordingly, the city decided to promote the pilot project through a meeting with related organizations last September, based on the ‘Gwangju City Ordinance on Creating an Environment for Preventing Smoking and Supporting Smoking Cessation for Children and Adolescents’ enacted in October last year.

Together with the Office of Education, the no-smoking zones on school routes were decided mainly by students and parents of schools wishing to participate, and the autonomous districts selected pilot sections after collecting opinions from local residents.

After the pilot project, the city plans to gradually expand it to all elementary, middle, and high schools citywide through evaluations and other processes.

Park Hyang, Director of the Welfare and Health Bureau of the city, said, “Children and adolescents are inevitably more vulnerable to secondhand smoke damage than adults,” and added, “We ask for your cooperation in smoking cessation, thinking that anywhere our children are is a no-smoking area, not just the no-smoking school routes.”

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