Seoul City Hall in central Seoul (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Dec. 11 (Korea Bizwire) – The Seoul city government said Sunday that 18 outstanding foreign residents of Seoul have become honorary citizens of South Korea’s capital city.
At this year’s honorary citizenship ceremony, the Seoul metropolitan government handed medals and certificates to those who volunteered to help North Korean defectors and multicultural families, businessmen who helped attract foreign direct investments and others.
One of the awardees was Casey Lartigue, co-founder of Freedom Speakers International (FSI), who has helped North Korean defectors learn English and communicate with the global society in the past decade since its foundation.
Abhishek Gupta, who uses the stage name of Lucky and is called the “Indian Uncle” here in Korea, received the honor for his efforts to promote Korea through his YouTube channel 354 and other platforms.
He donated some of his earnings from the YouTube channel operations to help runaway teenagers and neglected children.
Others included Francis Van Parys in charge of the Asia-Pacific operations of the U.S. life science company Cytiva; Tony Garrett, chairman of the New Zealand Chamber of Commerce in Korea; and Dirk Lukat, chairperson of the European Chamber of Commerce in Korea.
The Seoul citizenship dates back to 1958, when the city government delivered the certificate to foreign residents who helped rebuild the war-torn capital city after the 1950-53 Korean War.
As of Nov. 30, a total of 895 foreigners from 100 countries had received Seoul citizenship.
(Yonhap)
