Why Did Songpa-gu Launch the 'Guide Dog Entry Welcome' Campaign?

Efforts to Improve Disability Awareness in Gyeongju on the 41st Disability Day (4.20.)

[Asia Economy Reporter Jong-il Park] Songpa-gu (Mayor Park Seong-su) will actively promote awareness of disabilities by conducting a "Guide Dog Access Welcome Campaign" on April 20th in celebration of the 41st Disability Day.

Guide dogs assist visually impaired individuals with safe and independent walking and help hearing-impaired individuals recognize sounds, playing a significant role in enabling people with disabilities to participate in social activities.

To this end, the Disability Welfare Act specifies that guide dogs are allowed access to public places, lodging facilities, and food service establishments.

However, cases of restricting guide dog access in multi-use facilities still occur frequently, making a change in social perception of guide dogs urgently needed, which led to the launch of the "Guide Dog Access Welcome Campaign."

For this campaign, 1,000 "Guide Dog Welcome" pictogram stickers will be produced and initially attached to public facilities. Through this, facility managers and users will intuitively recognize that guide dogs can freely enter public places.

It is also expected to contribute to improving society’s overall awareness of disabilities by supporting the safe walking of people with disabilities.

Going forward, Songpa-gu plans to review the effectiveness of the "Guide Dog Welcome" pictograms attached to public institutions and facilities in the area and, depending on the results, consider expanding the campaign to private businesses such as banks, hospitals, marts, and restaurants.

Mayor Park Seong-su stated, “I hope this campaign will form a social consensus on guide dogs for people with disabilities and serve as an opportunity to increase understanding of disabilities,” adding, “We will continue to do our best to create a happy Songpa where people with disabilities live together equally with non-disabled people through various disability awareness improvement projects, recognizing disability as a matter of difference, not deficiency.”

Pictogram: A compound word of picture + telegram, it is a visual design that symbolizes objects, facilities, and actions so that an unspecified majority of people can quickly and easily understand them.