Dongdaemun-gu Accelerates Efforts to Revitalize Youth Policy Governance

Actively Discovering Localized Youth Policies Centered on Dongdaemun-gu Youth Network

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Jong-il] Dongdaemun-gu (Mayor Yoo Deok-yeol) is accelerating efforts to discover and implement youth policies that can provide practical help to young people.

The district was selected last April as a participating autonomous district in the '2021 Seoul Youth Policy Governance Activation Project.'

Accordingly, through public discussion and deliberation processes within youth participation organizations, it plans to discover life-oriented policies reflecting regional characteristics and submit them to Seoul City.

To this end, the district is focusing on the Dongdaemun Youth Policy Network (hereafter 'Dongcheongnet'), organized at the end of last year to gather opinions from youths active in various fields, to develop diverse policies.

Currently, 71 youths serve as committee members of Dongcheongnet, which is composed of four divisions: jobs, places to stand, places to play, and places to share. Each division collects and discusses opinions on various support measures such as ▲employment and startup support ▲labor welfare and work environment improvement ▲freelancer support ▲prevention of career interruption, deriving region-tailored ideas.

The district plans to select final ideas to be promoted as actual policies through online and offline public discussions and deliberations, and submit a youth policy proposal to Seoul City within this month.

Through this activation project, the district expects to establish various youth policy infrastructures such as ▲creating a participation base for local youths in district administration ▲systematizing the discovery and nurturing of local youth activists ▲strengthening youth autonomy through responsibility and authority delegation.

Yoo Deok-yeol, Mayor of Dongdaemun-gu, stated, “We will generously support so that the creativity and imagination of local youths can lead to the implementation of policies that provide practical help to young people.”