Gwanak-gu 'Student-Village Elder Friendship' Education Welfare Support for Underprivileged Youth

Creating Family-Like Bonds and Promoting Children's Psychological Stability Through Five-Day Weekly Mentoring

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Jong-il] Gwanak-gu (Mayor Park Jun-hee) is actively promoting the ‘Student-Village Elder Friendship’ project to support local youth facing difficulties due to changes in the educational environment in the post-COVID-19 era.

With the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic and continued remote classes, children without guardians are spending more time alone, leading to various issues such as basic academic underachievement and excessive gaming.

In response, the Gwanak Innovation Education District, through a public-private-academic governance, is working with the local community to devise support measures for educationally and welfare-disadvantaged youth. Collaborating with Dongjak-Gwanak Office of Education and Gwanak Education Welfare Center, after a pilot operation in the second half of last year, the ‘Student-Village Elder Friendship’ project is being fully implemented this year.

The ‘Student-Village Elder Friendship’ project matches village elders with experience in education and counseling with students to conduct various programs such as ▲online classes ▲assignment guidance ▲sharing interests and daily news.

The program runs from May to December, five times a week (twice in-person, three times online), fostering family-like bonds through weekly mentoring to contribute to the psychological stability of the children.

Lee Ji-eun, who participated in last year’s pilot project, said, “Through this project, I became friends with Young-eun (pseudonym). Since Young-eun was not very interested in the curriculum, we held piano lessons on Tuesdays and various classes such as math and English on Thursdays. Seeing Young-eun start to take an interest in learning made me proud, and I wanted to participate in the project again this year.”

Currently, 15 mentors with diverse backgrounds such as music therapists, art therapists, and reading discussion instructors are working with 45 students. Under strict quarantine guidelines, they plan to continue various programs including home visits and phone counseling until the end of this year.

Meanwhile, the district is also conducting multifaceted support activities for local youth, such as ‘SAM Mentoring’ with university students from Seoul National University and others to support learning, career, and college admission, and ‘Theme-based Toktok Mentoring’ to support arts and cultural activities.

Mayor Park Jun-hee said, “I sincerely thank the village elders in the local community who have stepped forward to solve youth problems in the post-COVID-19 era,” adding, “We will continue to cooperate with the community and do our best to support the academic and emotional well-being of educationally and welfare-disadvantaged youth.”

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