Editors notes

 

The interim executive of PIMA began a very embryonic Newsletter at the end of 2015. This serves for now as a main channel from the editors to the expanding membership. In line with PIMA participatory and interactive principles it needs to be a facilitated member exchange – a means for members to talk to one another regularly, as well as to learn. It should offer ideas and critical-constructive feedback to the PIMA Committee. We need to work out the structure and most easy to use form of the Newsletter, as well as its frequency.

 

1.1 University engagement in reviving community in a declining Taiwan village

 

PIMA member Yahui Fang has been working with her National Cheng Chung University (NCKU) on a project in the poor and declining rural village of Gongguan, population 500,
 25 km from the University in Southern Taiwan. The only school had been closed followed declining numbers. Yahui is proposing a paper for the PASCAL Annual Conference in Glasgow in June. Here she gives us a preview of the purposes and approach used to support a local struggling community in transition.

 

After three unsuccessful initiatives The Humanities Innovation and Social Practice project team organized by NCKU tried a distance learning service to support the local Presbyterian Church’s after-school learning. The team made efforts for organization development in systematic engagement to create a positive loop targeted on empowering local community workers and future generations (from 3rd Grade to Senior high) through developing a community-engaged curriculum. The purpose was to develop a solution that resolves rural education and community rejuvenation together.

We (the project team and some engaged teachers) arranged several courses to address community transition; like engaging students to develop a Design Thinking program for kids to explore their everyday life, to encourage their ability to identify problems, propose problem-solving solutions and take action through team-building and team work. A humanitarian Architecture course was devoted to situating in the daily life experiences of this dispersed village and to weaving diverse images of ‘the community’. Other courses worked on specific topics: like helping farmers record planting information; or arranging dialogue to create social inclusion through training in facilitation skills.

In the monthly Design for Change program, using Design thinking methodology, kids were encouraged to identify their real problems to solve with their interests, then gradually find a solution through group discussion with a process of feel-image-act-share. Students and kids learned how to solve problems and build competence through learning by doing, and eventually to generate a sense of self-efficacy, and shifted their self-concept from "Can I do it?" to "Yes, I can do it". 

 

At the end of the semester, we curated an exhibition titled impression of Gongguan at the obsolete Gong-lin Elementary School. With a scale model, animations and song about history of Gonglin Elementary school, and a quick sketch on their daily life, this echoed many deeper feelings and memories for community leaders and residents as well. Kids were outstanding and their proud comments on their hometown (beautiful scenery and friendly people) impressed their parents particularly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The exhibition worked successfully as kids, residents and visitors shared their ideas and stories about Gongguan. The one regret was that fewer people than expected in the community took part in this exhibition, while more visitors, all having social connections with us, participated. This activity - 3 units of exhibition with 70 mins of story-telling - helped different stakeholders (kids, adults, visitors) in a certain kind of understanding  of others’ impression of this place.

 

After the exhibition, we have been working on strengthening the community association's willingness to work for internal empowerment. The community worker said they could have 3+1 staff fully engaged in the coming community development training workshop. This year, we plan to work with local community workers to apply a transformative scenario planning methodology through organizing a trans-disciplinary curriculum, in order to sketch preferable future scenarios toward transition and to incubate possible transformative action plans through collective efforts.

In the final exhibition, kids proposed their comments on their hometown, its beautiful scenery and friendly people, to proud, touched, and motivated adults, and shed some light on an optimistic future for this aging and vulnerable community.

 

Yahui concludes:

 

The elected community leader fed backed his comments to all: “I remembered, in November last year, NCKU asked me: what is my future scenario of Gongguan in 2025. I replied, this is the more difficult question. I felt afraid to respond. But, when I saw our kids could express their strong feeling and bonding with the community, I found they are our future.”

 

From some past memories, and some close interactions with students and teachers, with their younger generations, emerged new future images. The fruitful outcome is crossing physical boundary between the community and the University, and generating sense of self efficacy, for community residents, and for students/teachers as well.

 

The City of Taipei is planning to send a large delegation to the PASCAL Glasgow Conference in June. It will be interesting to compare their approach to the learning city concept in that city context and practice with this remote rural one. How does initiative occur, how does planning affect the activities, what resources are required and where are they drawn from, what are the feedback loops for continuous development? Not only for Taipei and Taiwan: there are issues here that are common to almost all planned community development initiatives.

 

有關課程紀實 「人間風景」http://service-learning.osa.ncku.edu.tw/ezfiles/281/1281/img/1644/141350226.m4v

岡林國小動畫歌