Gwangju Nam-gu Wins Minister of Health and Welfare Award for 'Play Culture Innovation'

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Nam-gu, Gwangju Metropolitan City (District Mayor Kim Byeong-nae) announced on the 30th that it received the Minister of Health and Welfare Award in recognition of the achievements of the ‘Community Play Innovation Leading Area Project,’ a new project introduced this year to provide children in the district with opportunities to experience various play cultures.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare recently conducted a survey on the status of play innovation leading areas targeting local governments nationwide that carried out the Community Play Innovation Leading Area Project to discover play project models suitable for local conditions, selecting 10 local governments nationwide with outstanding project performance.

Nam-gu was the only district selected from Gwangju and Jeonnam.

The reason Nam-gu was able to receive the Minister of Health and Welfare Award was that it partnered with three institutions active in the community to spread various play cultures to children aged 6 to 12.

After being selected as a project area for the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s ‘Play Innovation Leading Area Public Contest Project’ earlier this year, Nam-gu has been carrying out a play culture expansion project tailored to children’s perspectives in collaboration with Gonghana Cooperative, The Namu Co., Ltd., and the Korea Arts and Culture Federation.

In particular, each project institution has been providing customized play cultures suitable for lower and upper grade students to 225 children (75 per institution) every month from July to November.

During this period, lower grade children had opportunities to experience board games, Running Man games, traditional play, and creative convergence play, while upper grade students engaged in sports-type play cultures such as archery, climbing, Korean traditional archery (Gukgung), and dance musicals.

A Nam-gu official said, “Seeing children in the district, who previously lacked playtime, running around freely gave us a sense of fulfillment in promoting the new project. Especially, the fact that social bonds among peer children were tightly formed through various play activities can be considered the greatest achievement.”

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