Korea Transportation Safety Authority Provides Mentoring Service for Children of Traffic Accident Victims

Addressing Learning Gaps and Promoting Career Aptitude Testing Due to Prolonged COVID-19 Pandemic

[Asia Economy Reporter Kangwook Cho] The Korea Transportation Safety Authority announced on the 10th that it will provide mentoring services to instill proper values and support emotional stability for children of families affected by car accidents.

The mentoring service matches university student mentors with children of car accident victims on a 1:1 basis to support counseling for adolescent concerns, academic guidance, and field experience activities.

Since the mentoring service began in 2011, 656 university student mentors have supported 786 children of victims.

This year, from April to December, the program plans to support 60 mentees monthly with at least four sessions each month, strictly adhering to social distancing measures.

In particular, to address educational disparities caused by the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, a creative reading program providing three socially recommended books per month will be conducted.

Additionally, with sponsorship from Kumho Tire, in-depth career aptitude tests (including learning, personality, and character type assessments) will be provided to help adolescents develop career development capabilities.

The support project for families affected by car accidents started in 2000 and has provided 65.9 billion KRW in rehabilitation subsidies, academic encouragement funds for children, and more to approximately 370,000 people through last year. This year, economic support projects worth 18.4 billion KRW will be carried out for about 10,000 people.

Besides economic support, emotional support projects such as home care services to alleviate physical difficulties and mentoring services for children of victims are also being conducted to improve quality of life.

Kwon Yong-bok, Director of the Authority, expressed, “We sincerely thank the university student mentors who volunteer to support children of car accident victims facing difficulties,” and emphasized, “We plan to continue discovering and promoting various support projects through collaboration between the private and public sectors so that children of car accident victims can grow into healthy members of society. Active sharing and talent donation participation from private companies are necessary.”