Questions/Answers

We are facing air pollution issues and over-clustered urbanization, and we have been considering how to react to ongoing environment issues. And in order to solve the most fundamental problems that local governments can solve amongst the environmental problems facing us, Seodaemun-gu decided to start providing a space of indoor playgrounds where children can play safely. Due to problems such as fine dust, ozone, and climate change, children's outdoor spaces are reduced, and through this, restrictions on children's activities have been created. To ensures the healthy development and learning environments that come about through playing, we established and are operating the Seodaemun Kids Health Care Center “AIRANG,” which improves children's play environment and manages their health through efficient physical fitness measurements. ‣ Detail Goals • Seodaemun-gu will provide children with safe physical education spaces, protecting from various climate and environment problems such as fine dust, ozone, and heat waves with the goal to track changes in the children’s bodies by measuring and systematically managing the physical strength of children who engage in physical activity in the area. • In addition, by utilizing tracked data, we will provide a physical development exercise program by identifying exercise abilities by age group and provide physical development exercise programs that are sufficient for the target and promote health counseling. • In order to provide recommended physical activities for children's growth in a safe space, we aim to provide free support for children's physical activities at least once every quarter, which is more than 15,000 times a year based on the number of times the 170 nearby daycare centers use the facility.

Currently, problems such as destruction of ecosystems, ozone destruction, record high heat waves, and disease outbreaks caused by fine dust are occurring worldwide. Furthermore, due to the accelerating urbanization of civilization, children are losing environmentally-ideal play areas. In this environmental change, taking responsibility for the health of children, providing children with enough and safe space to play and managing their health is the most important goal in Seodaemun-gu.

Aiming for quality education (4) and climate change response (13), the detailed goals are as follows. (4.2.) Quality infant development for all girls and boys, (4.a.) Providing a safe, inclusive, and effective learning environment for all, (13.1.) Strengthening resilience to climate-related risks, (13.b.) improving effective climate change management capabilities. In an indoor play area that is safe from signs of the climate crisis, such as fine dust, we plan and operate customized exercises and physical education programs by comparing and analyzing children by growth period (every 60 to 90 days of birth) based on the physical strength measurement data of children. It has secured more than 17,000 visitors a year by opening AIRANG with various events, such as water play, Halloween, viewing programs, and performances using the infrastructure within the facility. Through these efforts, we were able to provide residents with a proper and safe play environment that protects children from damage caused by environmental changes. In addition, these users became the basis for securing a lot of fitness data on children. Seodaemun-gu plans to use this as important data to provide physical strength reinforcement activities based on a child's birth cycle.

The recent radical industrialization at home and abroad has expanded into a fine dust issue. In addition, as it becomes difficult to fundamentally solve problems related to the external environment, such as abnormal climate and heat waves, which are intensifying due to climate change, an indoor play environment that protects children from external dangers has become a very important factor in children's growth. Accordingly, the need to provide an environment in which children can grow safely through the establishment and provision of infrastructure is gradually increasing, so it can be said that such a business needs to be sustained.

AIRANG is a facility operated by local governments at a low cost (about 2,000 won per person), so any residents can use it. However, there was a need to solve the problem of accessibility at AIRANG. As a means of transportation to access AIRANG, a large childcare institution with good financial conditions had a shuttle bus. However, childcare institutions with poor finances had to lease separate buses, and children living in a region with weak transportation were also forced to take buses. As a result, only childcare institutions with good financial conditions were placed in a situation where the children could use AIRANG. Seodaemun-gu recognized the problem and has established a dedicated free shuttle bus so that children can safely move from childcare facilities to AIRANG. Providing services so that children can safely go to the facilities played a very important role in creating conditions that children with poor financial conditions or small childcare facilities can use the facilities without discrimination. All nearby childcare facilities have become the cornerstone for equal access to facilities regardless of financial conditions.

It is also true that despite the introduction of the concept of gender equality, there is an old-fashioned perception that raising children is the role of mothers. AIRANG is trying to break these stereotypes. Children can use all the facilities together, regardless of gender, and guardians can realize that playing and caring for children is an equally-assigned role for both parents. Parents also sometimes enjoy activities with their children. In addition, a separate play room for infants was created for users with younger siblings, and by maintaining a breastfeeding room, we try not let the users feel uncomfortable.

Physical education services are provided for children between the ages of 3 and 9. By providing intensive and systematic play environments and sports activities to children who lack play areas and sports activities, we established a basis for children to grow healthy. The most important improvement is cognitive and motor skills improvement for children of this age, as they can acquired through a proper playing environment. Nevertheless, we created an indoor play environment as the countermeasure for the environment since outdoor playgrounds could not be fully used due to the climate and environment. Accordingly, children who are able to do physical activities in a safe indoor environment can be guaranteed a healthy growth. In addition, children's physical activity data accumulated by AIRANG is used as an important factor in checking and supplementing children's nutritional development status and physical ability status in connection with public health centers. The data accumulated through long-term operation are greatly expected to be used as highly reliable data for research on children’s physical development.

‘AIRANG’ was planned in February 2017 for the first time in Korea with the goal of creating an indoor playing environment for children that is not affected by the external environment based on IOT. After that, it took about a year to secure the site and form a basic plan. The construction, which started in April 2018, was carried out by reflecting the opinions of actual users, which are monitored during the construction process, and was completed in November 2018. The name 'AIRANG', means a place where parents can come and have fun with their children AIRANG comprised a body pump zone and a play pump zone, and began operating. In the body pump zone, 6 types of basic physical strength data are collected through children's natural play activities, so that customized exercise can be presented. And in the Play Pump Zone, with activities like VR Ground, Net Playground, and Rock climbing Playground, you can develop a sense that it is the basis of growth and development. AIRANG received feedback through continuous monitoring, and received very high scores in internal satisfaction surveys and satisfaction evaluations of external portal sites, and received attention from users.(※Refer to the answer for evaluation field No. 9) After considering synergy with the various infrastructures of the building where the facility is located (20,000㎡ complex cultural sports facility), AIRANG planned a resident event using a swimming pool, performance hall, and large hall. As a result, starting in March 2019, we started operating the 'AIRANG Challenge', which provides customized athletic play activities to reinforce insufficient physical skills and physical strength based on the results of the six physical fitness measurements of AIRANG users. Also, we began operating AIRANG seasonal festivals like Children's Day, AIRANG Summer Festival, and AIRANG Fall Culture Festival to expand the group of users.

Since there were no cases promoted by other local governments, there were many difficulties in creating a field environment where children could comfortably play. Considering the size of chairs and toilets, the height of objects, and the risk of safety accidents, we tried to design them to be at the children’s eye level. It is designed considering architectural and environmental factors to ensure good indoor air quality while allowing for lighting and ventilation. And this effort to organize the space led to the composition of a play space with a view of the forest, which received great praise.

AIRANG’s innovation is in the ability to monitor the growth and development of children through natural play processes, combining with IoT Big Data technology. It is possible to easily detect abnormal signals occurring in a child's slow growth, or in a specific region or group, and can find good cases where growth is prominent and use it as a good role model. We, Seodaemun-gu, expect that the accuracy will be higher depending on the amount of data accumulated in the future, and we are being careful to make good use of this data.

We were Inspired by a sports monster in Hanam, Gyeonggi-do, operated by the private sector. However, the above facilities were not able to provide customized services to children because they were promoting business activities in a wide range of areas from children to adults. In addition, only basic data such as heart rate measurement using IoT technology were collected and provided. We configured the facility to suit the child's eye level preventing safety accidents and increasing the concentration of facility users. In addition, data collected through play can be used as a measure to contrast children's nutrition, health, and athletic ability.

Using the Oracle server environment and RFID tag technology, AIRANG puts the children's personal identification information on a wristband with an embedded RFID chip and transmits the records of the children's activities to the server. This information is used as an index to determine what level of physical ability the user has by using the records of other users in similar areas as a comparative index. These technologies are accumulated in the server to further increase the accuracy, and will be used as data for future child development research.

AIRANG received a lot of publicity from the media, YouTube, and in 2019, the Chairman of the Korea National Balanced Development Committee visited. And participated in the Balanced Development Fair held by the central government. Since then, many benchmarks have been carried out, such as Seocho-gu in Seoul, Yangpyeong-gun in Gyeonggi-do, and Chungju-si, Chungbuk, are preparing in advance to form a child fitness development center or child health care center. In particular, Chungju City aims to establish a Kids Health Care Center in some multiplex spaces in the stadium with a goal of completion in 2022, and Yangpyeong-gun is also planning a child physical development center in a large gymnasium AIRANG is composed of a physical fitness measurement space, a playing space where physical activity is possible, a counseling space, and a rest space, and is a model that can be applied anywhere in the world. In addition, by using equipment such as RFID wristbands and readers that are commercially available at low prices, simple coding, and some sensors, you can have a system that can measure the physical strength of children in the play area. It can be implemented as a much cheaper model than the first Seodaemun-gu AIRANG.

Non applicable.

To promote this policy, 5 people at the Seodaemun Culture and Sports Center where the facility is located and 4 to 5 people from departments under the-gu office were invested in the facility configuration, and about 900 million KRW was invested for the purpose of facility configuration, system development, and construction work. Then, a total of 9 people, including 2 dedicated personnel, 3 sports leaders, and 2 administrative staff are being used for operation. The annual budget is about 300 million KRW Separately, volunteers are used to assist Children Safety Management events.

As of 2019, Seodaemun-gu has provided indoor sports and welfare services to 17,000 users. Entry was about 2,000 KRW per person, and while the cost was low, the satisfaction of residents through the policy was very high. Considering the data accumulated over the long term, it is judged as a cost well worth the investment. Seodaemun-gu, pursuing a “good place to raise children,” will continue to promote projects from the perspective of continuous resident satisfaction, the accumulation of valuable data in terms of future utilization, and support for the growth of children, which will become the basis of the country.

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For the internal evaluation, the Seodaemun Health Center collected data from 320 people by dividing them into two groups: a AIRANG participation group and a non-participation group, analyzing how their physical activity amount and physical strength has changed and how much their body has grown. For the external evaluation, users created a reservation system on Naver, the largest portal site in Korea, by themselves, and the use of the facility is evaluated with a star rating, as provided by Google Maps.

A satisfaction survey, a short answer survey was conducted for childcare institutions and individual users. We surveyed the satisfaction of counseling, the shuttle bus, the body pump zone, and the play pump zone for sports-type experience play by evaluating them from 1 to 5 points. In the evaluation of the amount of physical activity for infants and young children, the average number of steps, their growth and development, and healthy physical strength were measured by dividing the cases of children who experienced activities and those who did not. For the external evaluation, users rated the portal site with 5 stars.

As a result of the evaluation, 91.76% of the positive answers were very high among the multiple-choice answers. Representatively, where the proportion of play spaces for children was large. The outdoor play space was expanded to enable outdoor activities in an atmospheric environment that does not pose a threat from the external environment. As shown in the health assessment of infants and toddlers at the public health center, children who naturally enjoy physical activity perform 88% of the average standard recommended physical activity, providing 2.5 times the amount of exercise compared to days without physical activity through visits with children. It was the basis of the results that appeared to be. Improvements to these initial policy directions made it possible to construct a more comfortable and satisfactory usage environment, and through this, it became an opportunity to be spotlighted as a more popular facility. Furthermore, it has led to the honor of receiving awards, such as 2020 Innovation Excellence Award from Local Public Enterprise Assessment Service , 2019 Innovation award by Korea Management Certification Institute.

The Seodaemun Kids Health Care Center 'AIRANG' is operated by the Seodaemun-gu Urban Management Corporation, a public company affiliated with the Seodaemun-gu Office, and is provided with financial support from the city, setting a fee of 10% compared to the private sector (free~3,000 won). As a result, we have maintained the quality of childcare services for growing children in families with difficult living conditions, and ensured the right of equal use for everyone. In addition, we provided high-quality services to children in need through collaboration with the Seodaemun-gu Office's Culture and Sports Division, Public Health Center, Education Support Division, Women's Family Division, and 7 childcare centers. Under such a collaborative environment, we maintained continuous satisfaction by pursuing service improvement by facilitating communication with childcare institutions and individual parents, which are demanding institutions, and quickly identifying required services.

The project was planned through close networking with childcare facilities judged to be the most focused user base from the time of design, and a public private council with 7 representatives of childcare institutions was formed to address expectations and requirements of the facility a total of five times. 1. When constructing the facility, the appearance looked beautiful, but we also consulted on the use of finishing materials that could pose a risk to the safety of children and took precautions to prevent safety accidents. 2. Through networking, we offer a free shuttle bus to financially-inferior childcare facilities by recognizing that they have difficulties in providing transportation. This is one of our efforts to provide children in financially-inferior childcare facilities with equal chances to children in wealthy facilities without letting anyone feel left out. 3. In addition, by lowering the target age compared to the initial plan, we provided opportunities for physical activities to more children, and contributed to the development of cognitive abilities of infants and additional program planning.

We have gained a great sense of mission to provide children with a good environment free from external dangers and harmful environments while promoting the project, and we are very proud of expanding and supporting this quality environment. In the future, we will use the big data accumulated over 4-5 years to find out more of what children need, and through this, we plan to establish a stronger indicator of children's growth. In addition, we plan to focus on the “children's right to play,” where children can fully enjoy the rights of children without discrimination through continuous interest in life-oriented children services. Creating such a childcare environment will not only relieve the exhaustion of parenting, but also present irreplaceable health to the growing children, and will serve as an indicator to help plan physical activities in the future. Based on these data, Seodaemun-gu will contribute to a safe and comfortable growth environment from the climate and improved health of children by providing nutritional and physical indicators to children.