Gokseong-gun Promotes Rural Homestay Education Linked with Hometown Love Donations

Experience Rural Life with Long-Term Stay of Over 6 Months in the Countryside

[Gokseong=Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Cha Jong-sun] Jeonnam Gokseong-gun (Governor Lee Sang-cheol) announced on the 2nd that it has begun developing hometown love donation products linked to rural study programs.

Interest from parents is rising as the rural study program being conducted in Gokseong-gun, Jeonnam, is previewed in the documentary "Inside" to be broadcast on KBS1 on the 2nd.

Gokseong-gun has started developing hometown love donation products linked to rural study programs.
Photo by Gokseong-gun

Rural study is a program where parents and children who lived in the city stay in the countryside for more than six months to experience rural life and attend local schools.

Participants in rural study live with their peers in nature and ecology instead of smartphones or PC rooms. The broadcast will introduce happy scenes of children growing up playing in nature, stepping on soil instead of cement, and experiencing seasonal changes with their whole bodies.

A Gokseong-gun rural study official said, “Unlike cities where relationships are mostly one-dimensional, in the countryside, people form multi-dimensional relationships with people, nature, and ecology.

Through this, they learn consideration and directly see, hear, touch, and feel mountains, forests, rivers, valleys, trees, grass, fireflies, and stars in the night sky, learning by themselves in life.”

Gokseong-gun offers many programs so that children can have various experiences according to their interests and aptitudes. In addition to forest education such as tree climbing and forest orienteering, it also supports 4th industrial education like coding.

Anyone interested can also participate in the youth orchestra, and art education using theater is actively operated. Unlike city children who are overwhelmed by private academies, children in Gokseong carry compasses and find their own lives within the warm embrace of the village.

As rural study gains attention, Gokseong-gun is exploring ways to link rural study with the hometown love donation system implemented this year. The county sees hometown love donations as an important resource to reduce the growing gap between cities and rural areas by being used for various local issues.

In particular, they plan to use hometown love donations to prevent the closure of rural schools and expand the rural study foundation.

They plan to grow rural study into a regional brand so that more urban parents and children can participate in Gokseong study.

To this end, they first plan to include rural study experiences in thank-you gifts mainly composed of local specialties.

They are also preparing crowdfunding and other methods so that hometown love donations can support local education and become a hope for children.

To promote the project, Gokseong-gun formed a TF team in charge of the hometown love donation system through an organizational reorganization in January and is currently exploring various activation plans.

A Gokseong-gun official said, “Our small schools in Gokseong actually allow our children to study while being respected one by one because of the small number of students.

The whole village is working together so that each student can discover and grow according to their own colors.”

He added, “Hometown love donations will greatly help our children freely nurture their dreams,” urging participation in hometown love donations.

Meanwhile, the hometown love donation system is a system that promotes balanced regional development by donating to regions other than one’s registered address. Donations up to 100,000 won are fully tax-deductible, and donations exceeding 100,000 won receive a 16.5% deduction. Thirty percent of the donation can be returned as thank-you gifts provided by local governments.

Gokseong=Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Cha Jong-sun hss79@asiae.co.kr