Songpa-gu Cultivates 'Community Garden' Together with People with Mental Disabilities

Songpa-gu Mental Health Welfare Center Secures 300 Million KRW from External Funds
Selected as Support Institution for 'Mental Disability and Social Isolation Support Project' Hosted by Asan Welfare Foundation
Supports 100 Million KRW Annually for Up to 3 Years, Totaling 300 Million KRW... First Nationwide Mental Health Welfare Center to Receive This

Songpa-gu (Mayor Seo Gang-seok) operates the Songpa-gu Mental Health Welfare Center (Director Lee Jung-seon), which has been selected as a supported institution in this year’s mental disability support project contest hosted by the Asan Foundation for Social Welfare, securing a total of 300 million KRW in project funding.

Among the Asan Foundation for Social Welfare’s (Chairman Chung Mong-joon) contest projects, the “Support Project for People with Mental Disabilities and Socially Isolated Groups” aims to develop new welfare services that help people with mental disabilities, who have long been isolated due to social stigma and prejudice, lead stable lives within the community. After a thorough five-stage screening process, nine institutions were selected to receive 100 million KRW annually for up to three years.

The project proposed by the Songpa-gu Mental Health Welfare Center, “Insaeng Garden,” is recognized as Korea’s first “community garden” for people with mental disabilities, planned by benchmarking global best practices such as Denmark’s Allotment Garden and the United States’ Community Garden, and will receive support from the foundation starting this year.

The main focus of the project is to support people with mental disabilities, who have had limited face-to-face contact, in cultivating the garden, communicating with neighbors, and regaining confidence and vitality as proud members of the local community. In particular, the collaboration between the district office, the mental health welfare center, and the local community to jointly manage the open green space attracted significant attention from the judges.

A district official stated, “Insaeng Garden will function as an effective social integration model that helps people with mental disabilities form healthy human relationships,” adding, “We will do our best to operate it so that it can present a new direction for disability welfare and spread nationwide.”

With the secured funding, the district plans to carry out detailed project planning, promotion, participant selection, and education by the end of the year, and from next year, will begin full-scale garden creation with a team consisting of people with mental disabilities, garden creation experts, local residents, and dedicated social workers.

Since its opening in 2005, the Songpa-gu Mental Health Center has been operated under consignment by Seoul Asan Medical Center since early this year, providing more professional and systematic mental health services. It is responsible for the mental health of the community by conducting various projects ranging from prevention, early detection, case management, and crisis response of mental illnesses throughout the life cycle from infancy to old age.

Seo Gang-seok, Mayor of Songpa-gu, said, “Congratulations to the Songpa-gu Mental Health Welfare Center for being selected through fierce competition, and I hope the secured 300 million KRW funding will become a driving force for people with mental illnesses to return healthily to society,” adding, “We will carry out the project meticulously so that our case can become a nationwide welfare model.”