Suwon Saebbit Care wins grand prize at national 'Manifesto Best Practices Competition'

[Suwon Ilbo = Reporter Jung Jun-sung] The Suwon Saebbit Care project, considered one of the achievements of Suwon Special City's eighth civilian government, won the grand prize at the '2024 National Basic Local Government Leaders' Manifesto Best Practices Competition.'

The city submitted 'Suwon Saebbit Care' in the demographic change response category and achieved the grand prize, the city announced on the 1st.

Suwon Saebbit Care is a care service available to any resident in need, and has been praised for filling care gaps. The project proactively strengthens support for the rapidly growing elderly population and single-person households by providing four major categories and 11 types of life-rooted care services.

In particular, the project garnered high praise for providing differentiated services such as temporary pet care, and for developing resident-proposed services such as meal delivery services, creating specialized services unique to Suwon.

Additionally, village-level projects to address care blind spots, such as cultural and leisure activities for elderly people with mobility difficulties, basic fitness training for health-vulnerable groups, and gardening and emotional services for elderly living alone, also received positive response.

Suwon Saebbit Care provided 10,979 care services in response to urgent care gaps for Suwon residents, establishing universal care services for citizens.

The competition, hosted by the Korea Manifesto Practice Headquarters and the Gyeongnam Research Institute, was held over two days from July 30-31 at Inje University's Gimhae Campus.

Under the theme 'Rewriting Local Governance, Resilience,' the competition solicited best practices in seven fields, with 353 cases submitted from 148 basic local governments nationwide. After document screening, 186 cases advanced to the on-site presentation round to compete for field-specific grand prize and award winners.

Previously, the city won the grand prize in the inequality mitigation category at last year's competition with 'Everyone's City, One Suwon,' which promoted migrant participation in city policies. Since 2011 through this year, the city has won a total of 11 awards.

Suwon Mayor Lee Jae-jun said, "We are grateful that Suwon City's efforts in devising Saebbit Care to fill gaps in existing welfare services and resolve citizens' minor inconveniences have led to this award," and "Going forward, we will build Suwon as a special care city that warmly embraces anyone in need of care."