Bucheon Contributes to Healthy Growth and Enhanced Emotional Bonds for Children of Multicultural Families

The Bucheon Multicultural Family Support Center (Director Oh Wook-je) successfully operated its 'Parent Coaching Program' as part of its bilingual education support project from May 17th to July 12th. This program was designed to foster positive relationships between parents and children and to strengthen cultural empathy and emotional bonds. The center provides comprehensive services, including Korean language education, family education and counseling, and information provision, to support the stable settlement and family life of multicultural families. This parent coaching program was also conducted as part of these support efforts.

The Parent Coaching Program focused on raising awareness of the importance of a bilingual environment, improving understanding of bilingual education, supporting the healthy growth of multicultural family children, and enhancing their pride as multicultural family members. In addition to theoretical education utilizing online lectures and books, various experiential activities such as picture book education, flower basket making, and traditional snack making were combined to maximize participants' interest and engagement. In particular, the 'Chinese Traditional Snack Making' experience garnered the greatest response from participants, becoming the highlight of the program.

The class was directly led by Ms. San Zimoo, a marriage immigrant from China. Ms. San had previously acquired various certifications, including cafe dessert making, through the center's 'Dagaon Certification Class,' and based on this, she was recognized for her expertise by the center and invited as an instructor. Currently, Ms. San operates a store specializing in selling Chinese traditional snacks, taking the lead in helping Chinese immigrants experience the taste of home on special occasions such as holidays. On May 31st, during the Chinese traditional holiday of Duanwu Festival, she donated 70 handmade traditional "Zongzi" (sticky rice and jujube rice dumplings) to the Chinese language class participants, demonstrating warm sharing. Ms. San expressed her intention to continue voluntary activities through the center in the future.

This Parent Coaching Program is evaluated as a meaningful time that went beyond a simple cooking experience, sharing cases of self-reliance and growth among marriage immigrants, and strengthening cultural understanding and solidarity among participants. The Bucheon Multicultural Family Support Center plans to continue enhancing the capabilities of multicultural families and revitalizing communication within the local community through various language and culture-based programs. This is an important process to help multicultural families grow healthily as members of our society and contribute to the local community.