Seoul City Designates 34 New Multicultural Integrated Childcare Centers... Supporting a Total of 120 Centers This Year

Providing Quality Vulnerable Childcare Accompanied by Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Multicultural Family Children
Starting This Year, Collaborating with Autonomous District Family Centers to Operate Substantial Programs

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced on the 9th that it will newly designate 34 multicultural integrated daycare centers starting in June, supporting a total of 120 centers this year.

As a result, among the 3,411 children from multicultural, foreign, and Saeteomin families using daycare centers in Seoul, 1,405 children (41%) are enrolled in multicultural integrated daycare centers and participate in various specialized multicultural programs.

To provide high-quality vulnerable childcare for socioeconomically disadvantaged multicultural family children and their companions, Seoul prioritizes daycare centers with high childcare performance for multicultural children as multicultural integrated daycare centers and supports their operating and equipment expenses. Seoul provides a monthly operating subsidy of 300,000 KRW to multicultural integrated daycare centers so that multicultural and general children can engage in various multicultural experience activities together.

At multicultural integrated daycare centers, children from multicultural families who might otherwise be socially marginalized and general children understand each other's cultures and grow into healthy members of society through various programs operated by each daycare center. These centers conduct diverse experiential activities such as multicultural cooking, traditional clothing, and traditional games, support Korean language education for multicultural children, and provide education for multicultural parents, thereby running substantial multicultural programs.

Starting this year, multicultural integrated daycare centers will actively collaborate with 25 district family centers to operate various support projects for multicultural families, which is expected to greatly assist multicultural families who have faced many difficulties in language communication with daycare centers. Multicultural integrated daycare children will receive multicultural awareness education and be guided to participate in various multicultural family support projects such as multicultural elementary school admission briefings.

Meanwhile, Seoul plans to designate additional centers annually to accompany socioeconomically disadvantaged multicultural, foreign, and Saeteomin families. Kim Seon-soon, Director of the Seoul Metropolitan Government's Women and Family Policy Office, stated, “Reflecting the opinions from the childcare field, the scale of multicultural integrated daycare center designation has been significantly increased from the initial 14 centers to 34 centers, with 120 centers currently operating,” and added, “From this year, we plan to further strengthen the linkage between family centers and multicultural integrated daycare centers to help children from multicultural families grow into healthy members of society.”

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