Seongdong-gu's Full Effort to Create a Child-Friendly City

Holding a Research Service Report Meeting on 'Child Impact Assessment' to Analyze the Influence and Effectiveness of Child Policies... Establishing Advanced Child-Friendly City Strategies and Preparing for Unicef Child-Friendly City Higher-Level Certification

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[Asia Economy Reporter Jong-il Park] Seongdong-gu (Mayor Jeong Won-oh) took a step closer to creating a child-friendly city by holding the ‘Child Impact Assessment Research Service Report Meeting’ on the 28th of last month.

The report meeting, organized to analyze the impact and effectiveness of the district’s child policies on children and to derive future improvements, was attended by about 20 heads of child policy departments including Mayor Jeong Won-oh. They had in-depth discussions on the core tasks and directions of the research service as well as future development plans.

Previously, after receiving the ‘Child-Friendly City’ certification from the UNICEF Korea Committee in February 2018, the district has continuously implemented the six major areas and ten principles of the UNICEF Child-Friendly City, including guaranteeing play and leisure time for children, for over four years.

The district launched the ‘Children and Youth Participation Committee,’ a child policy participation organization that proposes and monitors child policies. It also appointed and operated a ‘Child Rights Advocate,’ held ‘Child Rights Promotion Campaigns and Contests,’ and the ‘Play to Your Heart’s Content Festival.’ Additionally, it created the ‘Children’s Dream Park,’ enacted the ‘Ordinance on the Promotion of the Right to Play,’ and continuously carried out various projects to promote child rights and spread play culture.

In particular, Seongdong-gu installed the ‘Seongdong Life Safety Learning Center,’ the first comprehensive safety experience center among Seoul’s autonomous districts, operating safety experience programs such as daily safety and disaster safety. It has also provided broad experiential learning opportunities for children and youth through various experience centers including the Global Experience Center, 4th Industrial Revolution Experience Center, and Career Experience Center, contributing to nurturing global future talents and putting much effort into the educational environment sector.

Furthermore, the district actively promoted life-oriented policies to create safe school routes, such as installing the ‘Seongdong-type Smart Crosswalk’ incorporating ICT smart technology, operating the ‘Walking School Bus,’ and running the ‘Traffic Safety Guardians,’ which have been widely shared as exemplary cases.

Based on this, from the first half of this year, the district conducted the ‘Child-Friendly City Survey Phase 1’ and ‘Citizen Opinion Collection Phase 2’ research services to derive residents’ awareness levels of child-friendliness and their opinions on child policies. Through this report meeting, the district plans to establish a more advanced child-friendly city creation strategy, prepare for next year’s higher-level UNICEF Child-Friendly City certification, and devote full efforts to making a child-friendly city.

Jeong Won-oh, Mayor of Seongdong-gu, said, “Through this research service, we will closely diagnose the effectiveness of child policies,” and added, “We will gather residents’ needs, further develop excellent policies, and supplement areas that are lacking to actively strive to become a more advanced child-friendly city.”

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