Gyeonggi Province recently hosted a “Seminar for Officials Supporting Foreigners in Gyeonggi”, to which municipal public officials, officials of related organizations, and representatives from related civic groups who are in charge of supporting foreign residents were invited.
The seminar, which was held in Vision Village, Neungseo-myeon, Yeoju-gun from July 12th to 13th, was joined by about 100 participants, including 75 public officials, 15 officials from related organizations such as Gyeonggi Police Agency, Gyeonggi Education Agency, and Korea Immigration Service, as well as 10 representatives from civic groups.

The seminar featured various themes, such as expertise-building lectures on the topic of “Issues and Tasks regarding the Isolation of Foreign Residents”, some sharing of best practices, and a lecture delivered by Idadoshi, a former-French national who immigrated to and successfully settled down in Korea, on her experience of putting down roots in Korea.

There were also team-building activities for friendship and information-sharing, lectures on leadership skills, as well as lifestyle and health tips. All of the programming was designed to diffuse a broad range of knowledge and information within the given time.

There are three departments dedicated to supporting foreign residents in the Gyeonggi Provincial Office, Ansan Municipal Office, and Siheung Municipal Office and there will be five welfare centers for foreign residents by 2008 (two are currently in place in Suwon and Namyangju, and three are under construction in Siheung, Ansan, and Hwaseong).

Furthermore, the “Act for the Support of Foreign Residents” will be enacted in each municipal office. As such, Gyeonggi Province is engaged in various measures and policies to support foreign residents to actively respond to the multicultural era.