Ministry of the Interior and Safety Selects 6 Sites for Basic Living Infrastructure Project Contest... 1.025 Billion KRW Support Provided

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The Ministry of the Interior and Safety announced on the 8th that it will provide a total of 1.025 billion KRW in project funds to six local governments to improve residential conditions and living convenience in areas with a high population of foreign residents and North Korean defectors.

In the ‘Basic Living Infrastructure Development Project’ contest held in March for local governments nationwide, after on-site inspections and evaluations by the project selection committee, the final selections were △ Daejeon City △ Namdong-gu, Incheon △ Anseong City, Gyeonggi △ Gochang County, Jeonbuk △ Gangjin County and Yeongam County, Jeonnam.

This evaluation focused on regional characteristics, activation of communication and exchange with local residents, and whether there was an influx of population into declining rural areas.

The six local governments will use the project funds to establish the relevant facilities within this year. Daejeon Metropolitan City plans to remodel social welfare facilities in areas where many socially vulnerable groups such as North Korean defectors, multicultural families, the disabled, and elderly living alone reside but cultural facilities are lacking, transforming them into community spaces including performance and video experience facilities and small libraries.

Anseong City, Gyeonggi Province, where 25.7% of all foreign residents in Anseong live and where Koreans from the former Soviet Union account for over 40%, will build a comprehensive support center in Daedeok-myeon to provide one-stop services necessary for local settlement such as employment counseling, language education, and childcare. Gangjin County, Jeonnam, will create a ‘Good (着韓) Stay’ to provide temporary housing so that North Korean defectors can experience rural and fishing village life.

Gochang County, Jeonbuk, plans to establish a learning center for multicultural immigrant women to support early settlement in Korea by providing language education and assistance in acquiring technical qualifications necessary for employment for women who have migrated through marriage immigration and other means. Yeongam County, Jeonnam, and Namdong-gu, Incheon, located near industrial complexes, will establish support centers to help foreign residents and North Korean defectors settle stably in the local community and offer various programs such as employment counseling.

Park Seong-ho, Director of Local Autonomy and Decentralization at the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, said, “We will expand projects to improve residential environments so that foreign residents and North Korean defectors can settle early in local communities,” adding, “We hope this will serve as an opportunity to foster a culture of mutual understanding and acceptance of differences.”