Seongdong-gu Yongdap-dong Residents' Autonomy Committee Wins Grand Prize at the 19th National Residents' Autonomy Expo

Operating a Wood Workshop in Partnership with Local Homeless People, Using Profits to Create Jobs for the Homeless and Others

Yongdap-dong Residents' Autonomous Committee Woodworking Workshop

[Asia Economy Reporter Jong-il Park] Seongdong-gu (Mayor Jeong Won-oh) won the Excellence Award in the Resident Organization Network category (Minister of the Interior and Safety Award) at the 19th National Residents' Autonomy Association Expo.

This Residents' Autonomy Expo, hosted by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, received 309 submissions nationwide in the fields of residents' autonomy, regional revitalization, learning communities, resident organizations (networks), and institutional policies. The Grand Prize (Prime Minister), Excellence Award (Minister of the Interior and Safety), and Autonomy and Decentralization Award were selected.

The Yongdap-dong Residents' Autonomy Association, which won the Excellence Award, attracted attention for utilizing local resources called the ‘Seoul Sae Hwal-yong Plaza’.

‘Seoul Sae Hwal-yong Plaza’ is an upcycling complex cultural space opened in 2017 at the Jungnang Water Recycling Center, offering upcycling education, experiential learning, and production and sales of upcycled products. In 2018, a woodworking workshop, led by the Yongdap-dong Residents' Autonomy Association and the Vision Training Center (a rehabilitation facility for the homeless), moved in, marking the start of full-scale residents' autonomy projects.

In particular, using waste wood discharged near Yongdap-dong, where automobile parts dealers are concentrated, they produced and sold flowerpots, benches, and household items, reinvesting part of the profits into employing users of homeless facilities. This was highly evaluated as community activities through job creation and upcycling projects.

Seongdong-gu also achieved success at the ’2020 Seoul Residents' Autonomy Association Performance Sharing Meeting,’ where the Haengdang 1-dong Residents' Autonomy Association was selected as an excellent district. The ‘Slow Mailbox,’ an emotional postal service where residents write heartfelt postcards to their beloved family, friends, or themselves and drop them into a mailbox to be delivered a year later, was warmly received by residents as a medium conveying warmth during the COVID-19 era.

Seongdong-gu pioneered the residents' autonomy association pilot project in Majang-dong in 2013, the first nationwide, and expanded it to all 17 neighborhoods in 2019, leading the project proactively.

This year, due to difficulties in face-to-face group activities caused by COVID-19, Seongdong-gu opened and operates the ‘Seongdong-gu Residents' Autonomy Association Official YouTube’ channel, sparing no effort to support residents to participate as owners of their local community.

Jeong Won-oh, Mayor of Seongdong-gu, said, “This award is a valuable achievement cultivated by the residents themselves,” and added, “As Seongdong-gu was the first to start the residents' autonomy association, we will spare no support to strengthen its foundation and contribute to the completion of grassroots democracy.”

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