Beyond Seoul: Rural Areas Lack Essential Services, Including for Children with Developmental Disabilities

In Yangyang County, like many other regions outside the bustling capital of Seoul, residents grapple with a distinct set of challenges stemming from a lack of essential services. While the absence of conveniences like Starbucks or Olive Young might be a minor inconvenience, the lack of specialized medical facilities such as obstetrics, gynecology, and ophthalmology clinics presents a significant hardship. This is particularly acute for families with children requiring developmental rehabilitation services, who are forced to travel to other regions for care.

“

Most people cannot concretely imagine a scope beyond their own lives. Likewise, it is not easy to live a life beyond the scope of one's thinking.

As an employee of the Urban Regeneration Support Center, my work has made me acutely aware of these "missing pieces" within our community. The national urban regeneration project aims to revitalize declining areas, and a crucial part of this is identifying and addressing these deficiencies. The scarcity of developmental rehabilitation centers for children with developmental disabilities, including those with ADHD or borderline intellectual functioning, is a pressing concern. These services are vital for early intervention, yet they are virtually non-existent in many rural areas like Yangyang.

“

There are many things in Yangyang that exist in other regions but not here. The absence of Starbucks or Olive Young or dawn delivery is just a slight inconvenience. The absence of an ENT clinic, an obstetrics and gynecology clinic, or an ophthalmology clinic is very inconvenient.

We have incorporated plans to establish a psychological treatment room within a new community center, offering services like speech, art, and play therapy. However, recruiting qualified therapists to rural areas is a major hurdle. Many centers offer incentives like housing support or full salary coverage for therapy costs, but even these measures struggle to attract professionals, and accessibility remains an issue for those living in more remote areas.

“

Working at the Urban Regeneration Support Center, I naturally began to think on the scale of the local community, becoming more sensitive to what is missing than what is present.

The lack of these services creates a "gap" in care, often forcing children to interrupt treatment, negating progress. This underscores the critical need for public provision of developmental rehabilitation services to support children's development and enhance their capabilities. The work of urban regeneration is not just about visible structures like empty houses or vacant storefronts; it's about filling these unseen gaps in economic, social, and cultural services. While the task is immense, our goal is to mend these holes, both known and newly discovered, to build a more supportive community.

“

The goal of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's urban regeneration project is, simply put, to revitalize declining areas by any means possible.