Three Honorable Vice Mayors Named for Seoul [24-02-2012]
Last week, Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon posed for a photo with three honorary vice mayors at City Hall in central Seoul. The three members will be helping the mayor develop new policies for the young, the disabled and the elderly. Kim Young-kyung will head the Youth Community Union, the director of the Human Rights Forum of Persons with Disabilities in Korea한국장애인인권포럼 will be Yang Won-tae, and Park Jong-hwa will be positioned as chief of Seoul’s senior citizen volunteers group.

To advise the city government’s policy developments concerning the minorities of society, the Seoul mayor and the Seoul government selected the three among 79 possible candidates. They will be representing the disabled, the elderly and the youth, respectively.

The Youth Community Union is the nation’s first union to represent young employees and jobseekers in the city. Aside from providing more jobs for the youth, the union plans to solve youth unemployment by creating jobs tailored for each individual and situation. Yang, who has been appointed as a permanent director of the Human Rights Forum of Persons with Disabilities in Korea, has been working for the human rights of the disabled. Yang plans to include the issues surrounding the disabled into the city’s general policies and provide support to the disabled in the areas of residence and employment.

Park, the chief of Seoul’s senior volunteers’ group, will team up with experts in various fields to generate volunteer work that requires their specialties. Park wishes to share the knowledge and experiences of senior citizens to shape new policies for society. Furthermore, Park intends to generate new opportunities for the public to volunteer. The three members will be collecting citizens’ opinions and participate in policymaking without any compensation. They will be involved in a meeting with the mayor and city officials every month. To generate a smooth and direct communication with the mayor, they will be provided with the mayor’s personal cell phone number and email address.
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