O Sehun's Former Secretary Jeong Sanghoon Ranks 1st as Welfare Director, Gu Jongwon Becomes 2nd as Lifelong Education Director

Seoul City Held Department Heads Workshop on 6th Last Month to Discover Good Idea Projects... Jeong Sang-hoon, Welfare Director, Won 1st Place with 'Seoul Bapsang' Idea Providing Lunch to Low-Income Elderly... Gu Jong-won, Lifelong Education Director, Took 2nd Place with Plan to Help Students Less Interested in 'Seoul Run' Develop Study Habits

Mayor Oh Se-hoon, who earned the title of 'the first four-term Seoul mayor,' has an in-depth understanding of Seoul's administration.

Because of this, senior officials such as heads of departments and bureaus in Seoul City are very tense. It is never easy to gain recognition from Mayor Oh, not only during individual work reports but also in group meetings.

As a result, Seoul's administrative level is evaluated as the best in the nation and even ahead of any city administration worldwide. Seoul's administration is emerging as a global model to the extent that it is described as 'the best in the nation and the world.'

This outcome is due not only to Mayor Oh but also to the high administrative standards of previous Seoul mayors.

On the 6th of last month, Seoul City held a workshop for heads of departments and bureaus, hosted by Mayor Oh. This event is held about once a year to discover new creative administrative cases.

At this workshop, Director Jeong Sang-hoon of the Welfare Office presented a plan to challenge 'Zero Elderly Hunger,' winning first place. Director Jeong, an 'Oh Se-hoon man' who served as Mayor Oh’s executive secretary, chief secretary, and administrative director, proposed a project idea aimed at achieving 'Zero Hunger (0)' for low-income seniors aged 60 and above.

He announced the introduction of a new program called 'Seoul Bapsang' that will provide one meal a day to about 9,000 near-poverty seniors who currently do not receive meal support benefits from Seoul City. The plan is to select two autonomous districts within the year to conduct a pilot project and invest approximately 9 billion won by 2026 to solve the elderly hunger issue.

Currently, Seoul City provides meals to 32,185 low-income seniors aged 60 and above. Director Jeong explained that Seoul City will directly contract with food preparation companies (lunchbox providers) to prepare lunchboxes and deliver them to the elderly. In this case, the unit cost can be kept around 4,000 to 4,500 won per person.

Delivery of lunchboxes can be done by seniors themselves, creating job opportunities for them. Director Jeong proposed, “Securing space to prepare and provide food is absolutely not easy, but by using lunchbox manufacturing companies for delivery and utilizing religious facilities, we can reduce the budget and immediately solve the lunch problem for seniors.”

Also, Gu Jong-won, who served as Mayor Oh’s secretary and chief secretary and later as director of the Lifelong Education Bureau, is a key figure behind the success of Mayor Oh’s hit project ‘Seoul Run.’

At this workshop, Director Gu discovered a good project idea while pondering how to help students who do not have proper study habits develop an interest in studying by combining quality online lectures and mentoring through Seoul Run.

Nowadays, students dislike face-to-face classes and often get distracted even during 'Zoom lectures.' When one teacher gives YouTube lectures to 3 to 4 students online, it allows focused management of students who are not concentrating on the lecture.

Recognizing that long lecture times are tiring, they prepared lessons in 15-minute units so students can take 2 to 3 sessions, and enabled questions via online platforms (such as KakaoTalk). The results were positive, and they announced plans to conduct a pilot project.

Other heads of departments and bureaus also presented their best researched results, and rankings were decided and announced through evaluations by a judging panel composed of the mayor’s office and young employees.

Director Jeong Sang-hoon of Welfare and Director Gu Jong-won of Lifelong Education, both from a civil service background, took first and second place respectively, earning applause as outstanding project ideas from Oh Se-hoon’s men.

Seoul City’s heads of departments and bureaus said that while they are evaluated on their skills by the mayor, first and second deputy mayors, and fellow department heads, this tense yet revealing opportunity serves as a chance to take a step forward.

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