Pohang-style Welfare Innovation ... Implementing a Welfare Platform for All Citizens to Enjoy

Establishment of Pohang-style Integrated Care System Including 24-Hour Childcare Center Operation

Building Elderly Medical and Care Support System, Selecting Memorial Park Site by Mid-Year

Mayor Lee Kang-deok, "Focusing Administrative Effort

Pohang City is focusing its efforts on creating a sustainable welfare city by implementing a welfare platform that all citizens can enjoy through Pohang-style welfare innovation.

The Family Happiness Center, which opened in Songdo-dong last August.

Last year, Pohang City promoted generationally empathetic welfare through customized welfare linkage by life cycle to realize welfare enjoyed by all households, and strengthened the social safety net with meticulous and substantial support for vulnerable groups.

Key achievements include expanding the number of part-time emergency childcare facilities operating on holidays and nights to two locations, and increasing the number of Dahamkke Care Centers by adding the 4th and 5th branches, as well as the 6th branch, Yangdeok Aegumseom Village Care Center, which held its opening ceremony in early January this year, leading efforts to eliminate childcare gaps.

Additionally, welfare infrastructure was expanded by opening the Heunghae Complex Community Center, the Integrated Veterans Hall, and the Family Happiness Center, a complex platform for co-parenting, family counseling, and care. Pohang City also proved itself as a truly women-friendly city by being re-designated as a Women-Friendly City for the third time, following 2012 and 2017.

This year, based on last year’s achievements, the city plans to concentrate administrative power on operating an upgraded welfare administration to ensure ‘welfare for all,’ where all citizens can enjoy welfare benefits.

First, in response to ultra-low birth rates and an ultra-aged society, Pohang will establish a Pohang-style Future Welfare Master Plan to implement sustainable welfare.

The 46 units of the senior housing facility, Eunbit Village, will be remodeled into care-safe housing over five years, and a safe environment to prevent falls will be created for 500 elderly living alone at home to support a safe and healthy old age.

Also, through a public contest for the ‘Senior Medical and Care Integrated Support Pilot Project’ in the first half of this year, Pohang will establish a Pohang-style integrated support system for senior medical care and caregiving. Accordingly, existing care services such as nursing and housing will be linked with home medical services to create a care system that allows seniors to spend their later years comfortably where they live.

Along with this, starting with the City-run Ocheon Hills Daycare Center in the first half of this year, Pohang will operate the first daycare center in Gyeongbuk Province that provides 24/7 care throughout the year. In July, the Kids Cafe and Toy Library will open inside Heunghae Ainuri Plaza, and child protection treatment facilities will be installed, expanding welfare infrastructure to foster a healthy childcare culture.

Furthermore, Pohang is promoting the construction of the East Sea National Defense History Memorial Hall to inherit the spirit of national defense, and the Memorial Park, which will be reborn as a premium funeral culture park, will finalize the site candidate within the first half of this year and begin full-scale preparations aiming for opening in 2028.

In addition, Pohang City plans to concentrate all administrative power to designate a pilot area for an education development special zone that can support everything from nurturing local talent to regional settlement.

Mayor Lee Kang-deok emphasized, “Welfare, which was mainly limited to specific groups, must move toward future-oriented welfare that all citizens can benefit from,” and said, “We will focus administrative capabilities so that all citizens can plan their future with pride and confidence in living in Pohang.”