The Foreign Ministry on Wednesday launched diplomatic corps, comprising civilians with diverse backgrounds and non-Koreans as part of efforts to strengthen public diplomacy.

The corps with five groups as well as 30 individual adolescents and 20 senior citizens plan to push for diverse projects with the government’s support to improve the national image abroad and to help increase its influence on the international arena.

The first-ever civilian diplomatic corps is part of the government’s drive for soft-power diplomacy after it secured a related budget of 6.7 billion won ($5.99 million) for the first time this year.

Of them, a team of musicians led by famous South Korean composure Don Spike plans to hold auditions in Kenya to boost people-to-people exchanges via music.

The list also includes three foreign students studying here: Liu Xioa He from China, who promotes South Korea via her Chinese social network service account; Alshaima Mohammed from the United Arab Emirates; and Jeroen A. Tonnon from the Netherlands.

“The launch of the civilian diplomatic corps holds significance that the government and the people are joining hands for the public diplomacy,” the ministry said in a statement. “The ministry expects diverse tips from the civilian diplomats coming from their vivid hands-on experience.”

Later in the day, the ministry held an opening ceremony for the public diplomacy cooperation center under the ministry’s Cultural Affairs Bureau.

The center, the first of its kind in the ministry, will be in charge of supporting diplomatic activities carried out by private entities, setting up a relevant online system, holding diverse contests for foreigners and creating promotion materials, among others, according to the ministry. (Yonhap News)