All the best things for the children–this is one of the principles of activity of the Workers’ Party of Korea and the government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
According to it, all the best things are provided to children in the DPRK.
Take children’s palaces for an example.
There are many children’s palaces in the capital city of Pyongyang and other parts of the country. Typical examples are the Pyongyang Students and Children’s Palace on Jangdae Hill in downtown Pyongyang and Mangyongdae Schoolchildren’s Palace in Kwangbok Street also in the capital city.
Inaugurated in 1963, the former has a total floor space of 50 000 m2 on an area of 110 000 m2 and is 48m high. It has more than 500 study and activity rooms for learning knowledge of such sectors as social and natural sciences, art and literature, sports, industry and agriculture. There are also a 1 100-seat theatre, a gymnasium with an accommodating capacity of 500, an outdoor practice ground and a library housing hundreds of thousands of books. On the top of the tower building are an astronomical observatory and an observation platform. Numerous schoolchildren are developing their talents to their heart’s content here every day. The same is the case with the latter which was established in 1989 and renovated in 2015. There are over 100 halls for schoolchildren for a similar purpose on excellent sites across the country.
There are also children’s camps in scenic spots such as Lake Samji at the foot of Mt Paektu, which is the ancestral mountain of the Korean nation in the northern part of the country, the picturesque Mt Myohyang, Songdowon on the east coast and Mt Ryongak in the suburbs of Pyongyang.
In recent years those camps have been renovated in keeping with the trend of the architectural art and modern aesthetic tastes.
A typical example is the Songdowon International Children’s Camp (established in 1960) renovated in 2014. Found in the camp are the international friendship hall for children, campers’ buildings, indoor stadium, swimming pool, outdoor playground, outdoor wading pool, outdoor archery ground. All the buildings and facilities are eloquent proof of the love for children in the country.
The birth of triplets is regarded as a sign of fortune for the country. Even before their birth, triplets and their mothers are put under the best medical care at the Pyongyang Maternity Hospital. After they are born, they are presented with ornamental silver daggers (for boys) and gold rings (for girls).
The Okryu Children’s Hospital which was built in 2013 is an up-to-date medical service centre for children. It is furnished with operating rooms, sick wards, treatment rooms, classrooms for hospitalized children, playground and rest areas. Many cartoon pictures hanging on the walls in the hospital make the hospital reminiscent of a “fine art museum” and help the patients feel at ease. The patients follow their curricula during the period of inpatient treatment.
In the DPRK, parentless children enjoy a happy life at baby homes, orphanages, primary and secondary schools for orphans in Pyongyang and many other parts of the country.
The Pyongyang Baby Home and Orphanage inaugurated in 2014 are furnished with nursing rooms, education rooms, exercise rooms, intellectual game rooms and treatment rooms and various amusement facilities and equipment. What is important is that all living environment ranging from furniture and fixtures to amusement facilities and interior decoration is designed to keep the psychological features of children and contribute to their intellectual development.
In the country the state bears the responsibility for providing everything needed for the education and growth of children on a preferential basis.
All children across the country study free of charge under the universal 12-year compulsory education system. Branch schools have been built for a few students on remote islands and trains, buses and boats carry students in remote mountainous villages over a long distance to their schools. The WPK and the government adopted it as their eternal policy to supply dairy products and other nutritious foodstuff to all the children in the country and provide all the students with school uniforms and school things.
That all these things mentioned above are drawing special attention of the international society is not simply because of its architectural beauty or modern equipment, but because they are associated with the ennobling and boundless affection of Kim Jong Un, President of the State Affairs of the DPRK, for the rising generations.
We should spare nothing for the good of children, any loss incurred in doing things for the benefit of children should not be counted as a loss and the more money the state pays for their interests, the brighter the future of the country will be—this is his view of the rising generations. True to this lofty view, all the best things of the country are provided to children before anybody else.
