“Senior Centers Are Changing!” … Busan City Promotes ‘Senior Center Community Plan’ in Response to Ultra-Aged Society

As Local Community Spaces for Enjoying Culture and Leisure

Smart Senior Centers, Digital Literacy Education, and Facility Modernization

Busan City Hall.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yong-woo] Busan City is launching a project to create ‘Good Senior Centers’ in response to entering a super-aged society.

On the 25th, Busan City announced that it has established the ‘Senior Center Community Space Promotion Plan’ to create senior centers that elderly residents can conveniently use within a 15-minute living radius.

As Busan enters a super-aged society, the importance of senior leisure welfare facilities that provide leisure and cultural activities for the elderly is increasing.

In particular, senior centers account for 2,338 out of 2,533 senior leisure welfare facilities in Busan, making up 92.3% of all facilities.

Busan City has prepared comprehensive measures to transform senior centers into community spaces where local elderly can access various programs within their daily living area and communicate as members of the local community.

The main contents include ▲diversification of senior center cultural and leisure programs ▲establishment of smart senior centers and promotion of informatization education ▲modernization of senior center facilities.

To diversify senior center programs, Busan plans to ▲distribute specialized programs by selecting 25 pilot senior centers ▲operate a ‘Senior Center Program Support Group’ through a public contest by the Ministry of Employment and Labor ▲distribute senior center programs linked with senior volunteer groups.

Additionally, to create smart senior centers and promote informatization education for the elderly, Busan will ▲build informatization education infrastructure such as internet and Wi-Fi ▲create a smart environment in senior centers by installing smart screens, video cameras, PCs, etc. ▲conduct visiting smartphone education at senior centers to bridge the digital information gap among the elderly.

Old senior center facilities will be modernized. Busan plans to promote the senior center facility modernization project through expansion and remodeling of existing senior centers and the Happy Community Creation Project to renovate senior center facilities through a business agreement with the Korea Housing Finance Corporation.

Furthermore, Busan will ▲investigate the basic operation status of all senior centers in Busan linked with the city’s senior job projects to build an integrated DB for senior centers ▲produce an operation manual for senior centers to create transparent and trustworthy senior centers, and implement other senior center revitalization policies.

Park Hyung-joon, Mayor of Busan, said, “As our society becomes a super-aged society and average life expectancy increases, elderly welfare policy is not a choice but a necessity,” adding, “We will proactively respond to rapidly changing welfare demands and discover various senior center revitalization policies to transform senior centers suitable for Busan’s characteristics.”

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