– Gyeonggi Provincial Fire and Disaster Prevention Headquarters Will Produce and Distribute Fire Safety Video for Foreign Residents in Four Languages

With the number of foreign residents in Korea continuously increasing, the Gyeonggi Provincial Fire and Disaster Headquarters (President Choi Jin-jong, hereinafter “Gyeonggi Fire Headquarters”) announced that it will be producing and distributing a fire safety video for foreign residents to prevent safety accidents and improve the safety awareness of foreign industrial workers.

According to the Gyeonggi Fire Headquarters, a total of 214,727 foreigners reside in Gyeonggi Province, including residents with a Korean visa and temporary residents without a Korean visa. This number represents 29.7% of the total foreign population in Korea. There are 116,794 foreign workers living in Gyeonggi Province, which represents 45% of the total number of foreign workers in Korea.

Foreign workers come from a number of countries including China (49,222), the Philippines (11,960), Vietnam (11,253), Indonesia (10,906), and Thailand (9,830).

In January 2007, the Gyeonggi Fire Headquarters produced and distributed videos for foreign worker safety education in English, Japanese, and Chinese. Now, captions in four new languages (Thai, Indonesian, Vietnamese, and Mongolian) have been added to the videos in order to eliminate possible communication barriers with workers from diverse nations.

To improve the quality of translated captions, the foreign language departments of Korea’s universities and officials from foreign worker centers helped the Gyeonggi Fire Headquarters to complete captions.

An official of the Gyeonggi Fire Headquarters said, “Overcoming the language barrier is a priority to ensure the safety of foreign workers and improve the efficiency of safety education. This is why we have expanded the language support in our fire safety videos for foreign workers.”

The newly produced video will feature responses to industrial accidents and will teach foreign workers how to call 119, how to evacuate, how to use a fire extinguisher, and how to give first aid for cuts and burns. The video will be distributed to small factories as well as plants and residential buildings accommodating a large number of foreign workers.