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“Recording Busan Through Our Eyes!”: Busan Metropolitan City Holds Launch Ceremony for the 2nd Children’s Reporter Corps

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Busan Metropolitan City (Mayor Park Heong-joon) announced that it held the launch ceremony for the “2nd Busan Metropolitan City Children’s Press Corps, Kkomabusangijadan” at the City Hall Grand Auditorium at 3:00 p.m. on March 14.

About 700 people attended the ceremony, including Mayor Park Heong-joon, members of the Children’s Press Corps, and their parents.

The ceremony was organized to strengthen the pride of young citizen reporters who will discover and share the charms of Busan from a child’s perspective and to present the direction of their future activities.

The event program included a screening of an activity video, presentation of reporter identification cards, a “DoranDoran News Special,” and an orientation session.

In particular, during the “DoranDoran News Special,” an “Activity King Reporter” who had demonstrated outstanding performance last year presented an article they personally reported, helping new reporters understand their upcoming activities and raising anticipation for the year ahead.

The 2nd Children’s Press Corps selected a total of 314 members through an open recruitment process at the end of last year, including children from multicultural families. Over the next year, they will experience various aspects of Busan and document them through articles by participating in programs such as monthly themed reporting, cultural and arts experiences, and on-site missions related to major municipal initiatives.

To diversify on-site reporting opportunities and provide more children with the chance to participate, the city expanded the number of selected reporters this year to 314, an increase of about 100 compared to last year. The group consists of 300 members selected through district allocation, five outstanding activity reporters, and nine children from multicultural families.

The Children’s Press Corps will go beyond simply promoting municipal policies; they will serve as a bridge that records Busan as seen from the perspective of children and communicates those stories with citizens.

In addition, Busan Metropolitan City will expand the distribution of the children’s newspaper “Big Eye DoranDoran,” published to enhance children’s understanding of their local community.

First launched in June last year, “Big Eye DoranDoran” had been published quarterly and distributed to elementary schools and children’s cultural complex spaces such as Deullak Nallak. Starting this year, the distribution range has been expanded to include all elementary school grades so that younger students can also access the newspaper.

The newspaper will feature a variety of content, including articles and interviews written by the Children’s Press Corps, Newspaper in Education (NIE) materials developed in cooperation with the Busan Metropolitan City Office of Education, and columns for parents.

Meanwhile, the enthusiastic activities of the Children’s Press Corps can be viewed on the “Big Eye DoranDoran” website at https://www.busan.go.kr/kids.

Through the website, the city supports the activities of the reporter corps while strengthening communication channels so that children can also participate in reader missions such as attendance checks, article reading, and quizzes to accumulate points and receive benefits.

Mayor Park Heong-joon stated, “The true protagonists of Busan, a city where children are the happiest, are our children themselves. The process of freely exploring Busan and writing their own articles will become a valuable foundation for nurturing children’s creative abilities.” He added, “I hope this experience will help children develop a deeper affection for Busan and grow into healthy citizens.”