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| From left, pastors Kwon Soon-wung, Lee Young-hoon and Song Hong-do pose during a press conference in Seoul, Thursday, held to announce projects lined up for the United Christian Churches of Korea (UCCK) this year. Lee was elected as the new president of the Protestant association at the end of last year. Courtesy of UCCK |
By Park Han-sol
The United Christian Churches of Korea (UCCK), one of the largest coalitions of Protestant churches here, unveiled, Thursday, major projects lined up for this year to help resolve key issues facing today's Korean society, from the falling birthrate to the aid of trauma survivors.
In the wake of the Oct. 29 Itaewon tragedy that killed nearly 160 people in a fatal crowd crush, the association announced its plan to establish a psychological trauma center for the recovery of survivors of scarring events and their families.
The center is set to be launched within the first half of 2023 in a joint initiative with Yoido Full Gospel Church and the Korean Counseling Service Network.
"We are working with teams of experts who ran a similar organization to aid the survivors after the 2014 Sewol ferry disaster," Lee Young-hoon, Yoido Full Gospel Church senior pastor who was elected as the UCCK's new president last year, said at a New Year's press conference, Thursday.
"The new center will be dedicated to continuously counseling and treating those affected by the Itaewon tragedy and other disasters."
In an all-out effort to address the country's chronic declining birthrate ― with the number of babies born reaching yet another record low of 20,658 last October, according to Statistics Korea ― the association signed a memorandum of understanding last December with the Presidential Committee on Ageing Society and Population Policy.
It is also looking to organize its own committee and launch joint campaigns to call for an expanded state- and church-level form of parenting and child support, "from financial support to childcare, housing and education in general," the president noted.
In addition, UCCK announced that its mission of building houses for the victims of wildfires in the eastern coastal county of Uljin, North Gyeongsang Province, will come to completion in March. The forest fire, which took place last March, became one of the most devastating disasters the country has faced as it burned nearly 30,000 hectares of land for nine days.
"It is meaningful that the construction of a total of 54 houses is centered on helping low-income households and people with disabilities," Lee said.
As for the humanitarian aid of North Korea, the Protestant coalition vowed to continue its projects on the construction of a cardiovascular treatment hospital in Pyongyang and tree-planting.
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