"Officials from Cities in Thailand” visited the Seoul Welfare Foundation to study Seoul’s citizen-centric governance and welfare."

On June 26, 2024, the Seoul WelfareFoundation hosted “the USAID Enhance Citizen-Centric Governance Exchange VisitParticipants”. The participants were officials from Sakon Nakhon, Chiang Rai,Pattani, Yala Narathiwat, and Bangkok, Thailand. The number of the participantswere forty-five.

The program started with a warm welcomespeech by Kim, Sang-Cheol, the president of the Seoul Welfare Foundation, andthe response speech by Nils Mueller, the director of the general developmentoffice of the United States Agency for International Development for RegionalDevelopment Mission for Asia.

Three speakers from SWF presented ageneral introduction and major Seoul welfare projects after the speeches. JiYoung Yoo, deputy chief of the ESG PR team introduced the Seoul WelfareFoundation in General including its history, missions, strategies, and variousprojects executed by SWF. Eun-Ha Jung, the Seoul Safety Income Project teammanager presented her new challenge for Seoul’s financial welfare, “SeoulSafety Income Project”. The project started in 2022 as Seoul City’s ambitiouspilot program supporting low-income families in Seoul. The detailedpresentation introduced how Seoul city works on financial help for people inSeoul. The third presenter, Myung-hee Paik, the team manager of the IsolationPrevention Team, talked about “the Socially Isolated Household Support Center”,which was newly established to prevent the social isolation of citizens. Afterthe covid-19, social isolation and loneliness have become highly recognizedglobal issues. The center is expected towork on reducing the isolation of the citizens by connecting various partiesfrom government to non-government organizations.

Following thepresentations, there was a heated discussion among the participants. Thediscussion brought all participants to a deeper understanding of Seoul’sWelfare. The participants from Thailand showed their admiration for Seoul’swelfare policies and practices. The program ended with a short tour of theSeoul Welfare Town including 50+foundation and Seoul City Elderly Nursing Home.It was an invaluable opportunity for both parties to understand each other anda good example of exchange