"Multiculturalism Leading Local Change": Hwasun County Multicultural Team Draws Attention

Establishing a Community Integration Model Through On-Site Case Management
Multi-Dimensional Support: Economic, Educational, Legal, Emotional, and Interpretation Services
Recognized as a Key Contributor to the Stable Settlement of Multicultural Families

The Multicultural Team of Hwasun County is directly reaching out to local marriage immigrants to provide customized welfare support. Photo by Hwasun County

On January 28, Hwasun County in South Jeolla Province announced that it is being recognized as a model case for community integration by establishing an on-site, closely connected multicultural case management model amid the increasing number of marriage immigrants and multicultural families.

According to Hwasun County, as of January this year, there are 588 multicultural households in the county, and the proportion of the multicultural population within the local demographic continues to grow. As a result, ensuring the basic livelihood stability of multicultural families, addressing legal and administrative issues, supporting child-rearing and education, and expanding community participation have emerged as key local administrative tasks.

To address this, on December 31, 2022, Hwasun County organized a dedicated multicultural support team (the Multicultural Team) consisting of one team leader, five contract-based multicultural specialists, and one administrative staff member. This team has been operating a specialized case management system focused on vulnerable households in earnest.

In particular, considering the challenges marriage immigrants face in communicating in Korean, the county provides comprehensive support across all aspects of daily life, including interpretation and translation services as a basic offering, administrative guidance, legal counseling referrals, child education, emergency economic support, home visits, and connections to relevant organizations.

In one real case, the Multicultural Team of Hwasun County provided regular home and phone consultations, as well as parenting and emotional support, to a marriage immigrant living in a remote rural area with limited transportation and information access, raising three children. This helped stabilize the family's daily life.

The Multicultural Team is evaluated as having gone beyond simply providing services to implement case management administration focused on problem-solving. Achievements include: reducing the social isolation of vulnerable multicultural families; alleviating factors of family instability caused by legal and administrative issues; improving the environment for raising the next generation through educational and emotional stability for children; expanding the foundation for economic independence through job and welfare connections; easing local conflicts by increasing multicultural understanding; and enhancing the protection of foreign residents' rights and administrative accessibility.

In particular, the case management system, where dedicated staff visit families directly, is proving highly effective given Hwasun County's large number of rural and mountainous areas. Other local governments and related organizations are now visiting to benchmark this approach.

The Multicultural Team of Hwasun County plans to continue ensuring that multiculturalism becomes a new source of vitality for the local community.

Seo Bongseop, Director of Family Policy at Hwasun County, stated, "Multicultural families are valuable neighbors and partners in building our community in Hwasun County," adding, "We will continue to strengthen our efforts to protect vulnerable families and support their self-reliance."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.