Gwangju City Selects Officer Park Suk-jin as "Employee of the Month"

On the morning of the 2nd, Lee Yong-seop, Mayor of Gwangju Metropolitan City, attended the Civil Servant of the Month award ceremony held in the City Hall Business Room, presented the award to Park Sook-jin, Officer of the Innovation Communication Planning Office, and took a commemorative photo. Photo by Gwangju Metropolitan City

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City selected Park Suk-jin, an administrative officer of the Innovation Communication Planning Office, as the ‘Civil Servant of the Month’ for February and held an award ceremony on the 2nd at the City Hall Business Room.

Officer Park established an institutional foundation by proposing solutions to citizen inconveniences through the operation of the Citizens' Rights Committee and by conducting in-depth discussions on citizen proposals to turn them into policies. She was recognized for strengthening communication administration with citizens by selecting joint action agendas for the Gwangju community through the 2020 Gwangju Citizens' Assembly and reflecting them in city administration.

In particular, she created a more convenient channel for citizens to make proposals through the online democracy platform ‘BaroSotong Gwangju’ and established a unique Gwangju method of policy-making by operating the Citizens' Rights Committee, which provided a forum for citizen participation and leadership in discussions.

Through this, it is evaluated that she achieved results by incorporating citizens' opinions into various fields of city administration, such as support for infertile couples, creation of barrier-free integrated playgrounds, and development of a safe city for bicycling. Due to these efforts, Gwangju was also selected as an excellent institution in the ‘2020 National Participation Level Evaluation’ hosted by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety.

Last year, she completely revamped the ‘Gwangju Citizens' Assembly,’ which represents direct democracy, encouraging citizen participation throughout the entire process from agenda proposal to empathy, discussion, and voting. By supporting the process behind the scenes to derive the final agenda, ‘Climate Crisis Response Policy, Implement Now,’ the assembly received high praise in a survey of participating citizens for the sense of efficacy in policy participation.

Officer Park said, “I have worked to turn the diverse and valuable proposals of citizens into policies through democratic communication, and because citizens participated and empathized together, we were able to incorporate good proposals into city administration. Going forward, I will continue to work harder so that members of the Gwangju community can put their heads together to find solutions to improve citizens' rights and share good ideas while communicating actively.”

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