[Gyeonggi Provincial Office at your service ①] Three services available at the Mobile administrative office
Domin Anbang (Mobile Local Resident Service)/Mobile Job Center/Traveling Library

◇ Domin Anbang (Mobile Local Resident Service)/Mobile Job Center/Traveling Library are the Gyeonggi Provincial Office’s representative onsite administrative services. ⓒ G-NEWS PLUS

The slogan of the 4th (June 2006 ~ June 2010) and 5th (June 2010 ~ Present) terms of Gyeonggi Governorship led by Kim Moon-soo is ‘Muhan Seomgim (Infinite Devotion)’. Gyeonggi Provincial Office has striven to find what it can do for local residents, even if it means officials having to pay visits to the sites where locals need help. As a result, it has launched three leading onsite administrative services, namely, the Mobile Local Resident Service, the Mobile Job Center, and the Mobile Library (For further details, please read the following).

Domin Anbang (Mobile Local Resident Service)

This is the first service of its kind to have been provided by a local government in Korea. The Provincial Office launched the service in August 2010, two months after Mr. Kim Moon-soo began his second term as Gyeonggi’s Governor, in the belief that it should be able to provide every possible service to local residents who have difficulty in paying visits to the provincial office to make requests or complaints.

The service is provided from 10:00am to 6:00pm. The Provincial Office in Suwon formed three teams, each composed of fifteen officials, to run this service. Every day, two teams work on site, while the remaining team works in the office. Meanwhile, the Provincial Office in Euijeongbu operates two teams composed of ten officials each to run the service. They work on site on two week days and then in the office on one week day.

The bus visits places where many people gather, such as places close to a subway station, traditional markets, special event places, intersections, parks or plazas or remote areas, including islands, community centers in rural areas, welfare centers, etc.

They listen to complaints about hardships experienced in everyday life, and requests concerning social welfare, housing or jobs, and try to resolve them. They also provide consulting on matters pertaining to laws, taxes, real estate, women, senior citizens, housing pension, and so forth in cooperation with the relevant institutions. They also provide medical counseling and help people living alone to receive first-aid services in emergency situations.

◇ A Domin Anbang bus parked near a subway station to provide mobile administrative services ⓒ G-NEWS PLUS

By the end of October 2012, the Domin Anbang (Mobile Local Resident Service) had provided assistance on 449,261 occasions over a period of 680 days. Furthermore, a total of 7,959 people (out of the 12,102 who visited the service) applied for jobs introduced by the Provincial Office, of whom 1,996 (25.1%) finally landed jobs.

Among the most noteworthy cases of assistance provided by the service, one senior couple suffering from lung cancer and a lumber disc ailment, respectively, came to receive the subsistence allowance granted by the Provincial Office, while another person found and met his younger sister, who was suffering from a mental disorder, after 18 years of separation. The Provincial Office helped her to register as a disabled person and receive subsistence benefit.

The Provincial Office also helped a woman who was being harassed by her ill-willed children to find a room for rent and receive subsistence benefit. Another Korean who returned home from Sakhalin could not receive compensation related to losses incurred during the colonial period. The Provincial Office helped him settle the matter by submitting the relevant materials required for his identification to the Committee for the Investigation of Losses/Damages Incurred by Koreans during Japanese Colonial Rule.

The officials even saved the life of a middle-aged man lost consciousness near Sosa Station. The team called a nearby fire station and made sure he was promptly taken to a hospital.

The team received the Presidential Award at the Local Autonomy Management Contest in November 2011 and the People’s Everyday Life Health Prize 2012 in September in recognition of its feats, setting an example for others to follow.

Service provided to jobseekers

The Provincial Office launched the Mobile Job Center on March 29, 2011. The service consists of a bus staffed by job experts that visits jobseekers throughout the Province. The experts provide advice and link the jobseekers with businesses seeking to recruit personnel.

The bus visits places where many people tend to gather, such as traditional markets, plazas near train stations, universities, and special event venues. The team also publicizes the existence of, and the role assumed by, the Gyeonggi Employment Center and thirty-one sub-centers in the province’s cities and gun.

◇ The Mobile Job Center bus packed with jobseekers and the representatives of businesses seeking employees. ⓒ G-NEWS PLUS

The six-people Mobile Job Center team works in two shifts between 10:00am and 5:00pm on weekdays. Each shift comprises an official and two job experts. .

The Mobile Job Center team worked a total of 141 days until October this year. A total of 4,034 people (83 from businesses seeking employees; 1,387 jobseekers; 2,564 information providers) paid visits to the bus. Out of the 1,387 jobseekers, 492 people (or 35%) actually landed jobs.

Thanks to an increase in the number of people who know about the role of the Mobile Job Center, the number of visitors to the bus is increasing continuously. In October 2012, for example, an average of 29 people per day visited the bus, while, on September 4, 182 people visited the bus near Yatap Station, breaking the record for the number of daily visitors.

A wide range of people visit the bus, including young people, middle-aged people, women, senior citizens, and the disabled. It appears that the bus is welcomed even by those who are reluctant to pay visits to employment-related agencies, particularly those in their 50s or older and those with college diplomas or lower.

The Provincial Office plans to enhance the operational efficiency of the center by increasing the frequency of one-on-one interviews between jobseekers and businesses that need employees, job-matching opportunities, and more positive cooperation with employment agencies.

The Provincial Office also plans to improve its service based on the results of the ongoing questionnaire-based survey and to provide a new bus for the service.

Han Yeon-hui, head of the Gyeonggi Employment Center, said, “The success of our operation of the bus is attributable to the well-established network of cooperation between the Gyeonggi Provincial Office and sub-centers in the province’s cities and gun. We are planning to provide a new bus with a more comfortable interior as part of an effort to provide a better service. We will also strive to improve the overall operation of the service by analyzing the appraisal of the operation.”

Mobile Library that makes everyone happy

◇ A scene of the launch ceremony of the Mobile Library at the Gyeonggi Provincial Office on October 8. ⓒ G-NEWS PLUS / Yu Je-hun

The Mobile Library Bus was launched on October 8 with a view to encouraging people to read more books.

The Provincial Office is using a 45-seat bus donated by the Naver Cultural Foundation. The bus carries more than 2,000 books, mostly for children, and is equipped with a device for showing educational DVDs.

The bus visits children’s centers, schools, and libraries in less privileged areas within the province. It provides programs designed to encourage children to read more books, including reading-related quizzes, and shows fairy tale movies or educational DVDs.

SUNNY (an SK Telecom-sponsored undergraduate voluntary service corps) and Probono provide a voluntary service about twice a month on the bus. Their work includes reading books to children, carrying out programs designed to encourage children to read more books, small performances, and making book-reading stands.

The bus is operated once or twice a day every day. By November 23, it had visited a total of 11 schools, 9 children’s centers, and 9 children’s libraries on 38 occasions, and more than 4,000 children had used the service. The Provincial Office plans to operate the bus on a total of 100 occasions by the end of this year.

The destination of the bus is fixed in response to requests, which can be made by phone (070-7834-5893), homepage (http://cafe.naver.com/happybookbus) or e-mail (hbookbus@gmail.com), with priority given to less privileged areas. People who request the service must ensure that there is sufficient parking space for the 45-seat bus and provide electricity.