Seongdong-gu Establishes 4-Year Blueprint for Child-Friendly City

2022~2025 Child-Friendly City Mid- to Long-Term Development Plan Roadmap Established to Ensure Children's Rights... Integrated Portal System, Training of Child Rights Civic Instructors, Play Planning Team, Metaverse Safe School Routes for Practical Rights Advancement

[Asia Economy Reporter Jongil Park] Seongdong-gu (Mayor Jeong Won-oh) has established a four-year plan from 2022 to 2025 to create a child-friendly city where children's rights are respected and they can enjoy a happy life, and is now moving forward with full-scale implementation.

The plan selected 34 key projects to be promoted over the next four years based on more than 130 child-friendly projects that have been carried out so far.

In particular, through the ‘Establishment of an Integrated Child Portal System,’ opportunities for children's policy participation will be enhanced, and child-related information will be unified and provided. Efforts will be focused on nurturing in-house instructors for stable and continuous child rights education by training ‘Child Rights Citizen Lecturers’ utilizing local resources.

Along with operating the ‘Child and Youth Play Planning Group,’ where children directly participate and plan play activities, a new project called ‘Creating Safe School Routes through the Metaverse’ will be promoted, which identifies and improves hazards on school routes from children's perspectives using the metaverse.

Previously, after receiving the ‘Child-Friendly City’ certification from the UNICEF Korea Committee, the district has continuously implemented the relevant principles in each area of a child-friendly city, such as guaranteeing play and leisure time, for over four years.

The child policy participation organization, the ‘Children and Youth Participation Committee,’ was launched to propose and monitor child policies. Meanwhile, a ‘Child Rights Advocate’ was appointed and operated, and continuous efforts were made to promote child rights and spread play culture through campaigns and contests for child rights promotion, the ‘Play to the Full Festival,’ the creation of the ‘Children’s Dream Park,’ and the enactment of the ‘Ordinance on the Promotion of the Right to Play.’

In addition, the district installed the ‘Seongdong Life Safety Learning Center,’ the first comprehensive safety experience center among Seoul’s autonomous districts, to prepare for daily life and disaster safety. Through the Global Experience Center, 4th Industrial Revolution Experience Center, Career and Job Experience Center, and Seongdong Child Love Complex Cultural Center, a wide range of experiential learning opportunities were provided to children and youth.

Especially, the district implemented lifestyle-oriented policies for safe school routes, such as installing the ‘Seongdong-type Smart Crosswalk’ incorporating ICT smart technology and operating the ‘Walking School Bus’ even during vacations. Last year, it also received the ‘11th Children’s Safety Award (Prime Minister’s Award, Dec. 2021)’ from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety.

To analyze the actual impact and effectiveness of the district’s child policies on children, the district conducted a child impact assessment (Oct. 2021) including child-friendliness and citizen opinion collection research. Based on the results, it built a roadmap and plans to fully focus on creating a child-friendly city while preparing for the higher-level UNICEF Child-Friendly City certification this year.

Jeong Won-oh, Mayor of Seongdong-gu, said, “Through various child policies implemented over the past four years since the child-friendly city certification, we will now take a step further based on our experience and know-how to focus on creating a city where children are truly happy.”

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