Gangdong-gu (Mayor Lee Jung Hun) has won the top award in the “regional culture activation” category with its “Happiness School” project at the 11th Nationwide Local Government Mayor Best Manifesto Competition.

The “Happiness School” is a project school renovation according to the direct proposal by students and their parents with the help of experts. Gangdong-gu has been promoting a remodeling work of schools; dark-colored corridors and lobbies, the building’s backyards and libraries that look like a study room has changed under the “spatial welfare” concept, “students change if their surroundings change,” through the Happiness School project, one of the 7th popular election pledges.

The project began with the awareness of a problem that most school facilities have rigid tetragonal structure which facilitates surveillance of and control over students, as well as monotonous colors and designs, which hinder students’ creativity and communication. At the same time, there have been many opinions about children not being able to express their thoughts regarding the places where they stay for a long time, unlike the aadults.

So Gangdong-gu sent experts to educate students, parents and teachers about their surroundings so that they could speak for themselves and offer proposals concerning the space renovation . The proposed ideas were used to help recreate a satisfying and safe space by the design and construction work done by experts.

The project resulted in changing Myogok Elementary School in Godeok-dong, turning its corridor into a space where children can read books and play together. A backyard of Gangsol Elementary School was reborn as a space for play and rest. The library in Hanyoung Middle School, which was relatively dark due to the lack of natural light, became bright with the installation of open-type book shelves. A lobby in each floor of the Sunsa High School which had changed into the book-café community space went over well with the students and their parents.

Gangdong-gu has carried out space renovation in 33 schools and painted with new colors in six schools at a cost of KRW 4.09 billion since last year through the Happiness School project. The project received attention in that it was not launched by neither metropolitan governments nor education offices. Other cities and provinces have been benchmarking the project as a model of educational administration.

Gangdong-gu Mayor Lee Jung Hun said, “I feel greater responsibility to fulfill my pledges following the winning the top award of this manifesto competition. By listening to the voices from students, parents and teachers, I’ll make school a place where students want to go and stay.”

Meanwhile, the competition, co-hosted by the Korea Manifesto Center and the Gyeonggi Research Institute and sponsored by Gyeonggi-do Province, drew 353 applications from 144 local governments across the country and 172 of them qualified for the finals. Of the seven fields, Gangdong-gu applied in three categories — climate change, regional culture activation and newsletter broadcasting — and was qualified for the finals in all the three categories; it enjoyed the glory of winning the top award in the regional culture activation.

The competition, which had been initially scheduled to take place on Ajou University’s campus for two days, was held through YouTube contactless online screenings due to the spread of COVID-19 in the Seoul metropolitan area.

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  Myogok Elementary School’s dark corridors were recreated as a space for creative play

  

  Gangdong-gu Mayor Lee Jung Hun reads a book with students, sitting on comfortable chairs, during a ceremony to open the “reading place to search for myself” of the library in Hanyoung Middle School.