Gwangju Seo-gu Selects 90 Warm Community Villages

Seo-gu, Gwangju Metropolitan City (Mayor Kim Ikang) announced on the 3rd the results of the 2024 Village Community Contest Project selection for the "Establishment of a Warm Seo-gu Village Ecosystem."

Earlier, Seo-gu held a residents' briefing session in February, provided education and consulting on project plan preparation along with the contest application, and after going through the evaluation process including the Village Community Committee, decided to support 90 organizations with subsidies totaling over 320 million KRW.

Photo of the village community contest project briefing session held last February. [Photo by Seogu]

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This contest project consists of three categories: ▲ Village Community (Free) ▲ Apartment Community (Free) ▲ Planned Contest (Cooperative Projects, Climate Crisis Response, Seoro-eum Living Lab, Communication Room), and Seo-gu plans to support resident groups or organizations within the district with amounts ranging from 2 million to 10 million KRW each.

The selected organizations include 49% new communities, reflecting the diversity of resident autonomy, and there was high interest from residents in life-oriented projects and cooperative projects among communities.

In particular, unique and cooperative projects attracted attention, such as ▲ Village Management Offices (Sangmu 1-dong, Geumho 2-dong) handling large-scale studio apartment area environmental maintenance, safe return home, tool rental for home repairs, and support for preventing solitary deaths ▲ The Harmony of Angels involving sharing, care, and donation (Geumho 1-dong and 3 other dongs) ▲ Citizen Oblige inheriting the spirit of sharing of Master Park Gwangok from the Imjin War (Pungam-dong and 4 other dongs) ▲ Village mural projects using PET bottle caps (Chipyeong-dong and 3 other dongs).

Each organization will carry out various activities until December after the agreement ceremony on the 30th, and Seo-gu plans to hold a Village Community Festival at the end of the year to provide a stage for performance presentations, sharing, and expert forums.

Additionally, detailed information including the final selection results can be found on the Seo-gu Office website under Notices/Announcements.

Mayor Kim Ikang of Seo-gu said, "Despite difficult conditions such as tax revenue shortages, I hope this will be a pillar for village community activities, and this year's contest project budget has been maintained at the usual level. We will continue to actively support the establishment of a warm Seo-gu village ecosystem where residents discover, propose, and solve local issues on their own."

Meanwhile, Seo-gu operates the "The Biggest University in the World (Sekeundae)" Village Autonomy Department to train professional supporters to strengthen the capabilities of village activists, and provides ongoing support to village activists through the local subsidy accounting system (Botaem-e) help desk.

Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Shin Dongho baekok@asiae.co.kr

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