When summer vacation begins, school meals stop. For nearly 40 days, children handle their own meals in homes their parents have left for work. The Ministry of Health and Welfare said on the 13th that it will fill this hole by running a "gap care project" (틈새돌봄 사업) that operates only during the vacation period, starting July 27. First Vice Minister Hyun Su-yeop explained the emergency measures at the Government Complex Sejong in Sejong.
There are about 5,600 after-school village care facilities nationwide. Of these, 2,500 are taking part in the project. Some 1,500 open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and serve a morning snack, lunch and dinner.
The remaining 1,000 open at 11:30 a.m. and close at 8 p.m., serving lunch and dinner. The arrangement matches care hours to the timetables of parents who leave work late.
The fee is 2,000 won a day, set by each center within a weekly ceiling of 10,000 won. Children from basic livelihood security households and near-poor households pay nothing.
Children who did not attend a community child center or a Dahamkke Care Center (다함께돌봄센터) during the school term can also come in if they apply in advance. Until now care services belonged to registered children, and children of dual-income households who lose a place to go only during vacation spent the summer without their names on any list. The way the project opens its doors on the basis of the vacation period takes aim at that blind spot.
Operation runs from July 27 through the third week of August. Regions and centers that are ready will open first, in turn. The ministry expects that if participating facilities grow to 2,500, more than 200,000 elementary students and parents will be helped each vacation. The figure is closer to a target than to confirmed results.
From the 9 a.m. snack to the 8 p.m. pickup, it is care workers who fill the eleven hours of the day. Cooking and serving, moving children and managing their safety all fall to them. This work is physical labor. The fact that the Goyang Women Workers' Welfare Center has run musculoskeletal training for care workers 21 times says as much.
Similar things are said about bringing technology into care settings. Sung Ji-eun, senior research fellow at the Science and Technology Policy Institute, pointed out that intuitive devices are needed that care workers and the older people using them can handle without separate training. Tools that do not fit the hands of those doing the caring end up adding work. The situation is not much different in child care.
The ministry said it will run the program the same way during winter vacation and keep it going year after year. It also put forward a plan to link the program with the Ministry of Education's "outstanding models for elementary care and education during vacation" project and to widen a cooperative system connecting schools and villages. It will not be left as a stopgap for getting through one summer.
How to secure the staff to cover eleven hours and on what terms they will work has to be sorted out region by region within the two weeks left before the start date. If that part is not filled, the added hours land on the shoulders of the people already there.
Inquiries about use open on July 27. Families can contact designated centers directly or call the nationwide counseling line 1522-1318, and the list of designated centers will be posted on the website of the National Center for the Rights of the Child. The office in charge of the project is the ministry's Child Protection and Independence Division (044-202-3444). Applications are taken in advance, so there is no reason to wait for the first day of vacation.
This summer, around lunchtime the door of a village care space opens and some twenty children take off their shoes. The day of the person who opens that door grows just as long. Only a measure that looks after both summers at once will keep the same briefing from being given this time next year.
