Gyeongnam Hapcheon-gun, 'Maeuljigi Wood Workshop' Wins Silver Award for Creating a Happy Rural Community

Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Hosted Rural Vacant Houses and Idle Facilities Utilization Best Practices Category

8th Happy Rural Development Contest Silver Award Winner
[Image Source= Hapcheon-gun]

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Choi Soon-kyung] Hapcheon-gun, Gyeongnam, was honored to receive the silver prize for Hapcheon Village Keeper Woodworking Workshop at the 8th Happy Rural Making Contest held on the 9th at the Daejeon Convention Center.

The Happy Rural Making Contest, now in its 8th year, aims to foster healthy competition and learning among cities, counties, and villages, discover and spread excellent project cases, and create a boom for happy and vibrant village making.

This year, about 1,900 villages nationwide participated, with 25 teams advancing to the finals. Hapcheon-gun worked hard with members of the Village Keeper Woodworking Workshop from May to prepare evaluation and presentation materials for the contest, earning the silver prize.

The Village Keeper Woodworking Workshop was established in 2017 as part of the Hapcheon-eup Rural Center Revitalization Project, utilizing unused space in the second government building of Hapcheon-gun Office. Composed of woodworking experts, it started with home repair volunteer work and has grown into the current autonomous organization.

The Village Keeper Woodworking Workshop continuously carries out social return projects through talent donation, including training professional woodworking experts, holding woodworking art exhibitions and bazaars, donating all proceeds to underprivileged neighbors, and volunteering for home repairs for elderly living alone and vulnerable groups. Since June 2021, it has continued to provide Hapcheon-style living services to the local community through approval of its establishment as a social cooperative.

Moon Jun-hee, Mayor of Hapcheon-gun, said, “I applaud the efforts of the Future Strategy team, related personnel, and members of the Village Keeper Woodworking Workshop who worked hard to achieve today’s results,” and urged, “As intended by this contest, I ask that the resident autonomous organization continue to contribute steadily to making a happy rural community by taking a leap forward from now on.”

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