Youth Development Administration (YDA) of Ministry of Education conducted “Youth Community Participation and Action 2.0—Changemaker Project” to encourage youth to return to their hometowns to assist in community revitalization and development. 2023 active team “懂栗嗨” and “樸植作工作室” in order to guide community residents to pay attention to the local environment and ecology, apply for an action plan from the YDA, through actions such as local artistic creation and converting environmental waste into product design, hope to work with local residents to protect the living environment of our hometown.
Weed-filled, dark irrigation canal, and dirty, smelly ditches often frighten local residents. For Miaoli City, which has dense irrigation canals, irrigation canals are an important infrastructure that nurtures and witnesses local development. “懂栗嗨” composed of local youths had used “reverse graffiti” artistic creation in 2022, using high-pressure irrigation canals to partially clean the drawings, turning irrigation canal into a creative drawing board, thereby attracting local residents to pay attention to water environment. In 2023, they proposed the “wade(design) through the water” project, by interviewing local residents about their views on irrigation canal to stimulate public discussion. They also collaborated with nearby kindergartens and local residents to conduct art actions, using hammer-dyeing, cyanotype, and reverse graffiti to carry out environmental education, so that residents and students can get closer to irrigation canal, and understand their own living environment. Looking forward to using small actions to gather community awareness and deepen the connection between residents and their living environment.
In addition to eradicating exotic species in the ecological environment, is there a better way? The overflowing White Popinac in Penghu, used to be extremely valuable firewood, but today it is an inexhaustible agricultural waste. The team “樸植作工作室” located in Penghu thought about whether it could reverse the thought of White Popinac. In 2022, they began to cooperate with the community, while sorting out the community environment, they also tried to industrialize White Popinac. In 2023, they proposed “銀銀五代誌- White Popinac material science” project, cooperating with the elders of Hudong Community to analyze the value of White Popinac, and design the five-sense experience. They also organized workshops to empower more local youth and community partners to jointly promote White Popinac. Not only has it developed local renewable resources and developed local industries, it has also established an Elders & Youth Co-Create community through community care combined with accompanying elders, practicing the spirit of "taken from nature and used in life", let White Popinac and local residents rebuild their relationship and walk into a "planted" life together.
YDA promotes the Changemaker project to encourage youth to form teams and show their love for their hometown through actions. Do you want to know more stories about youth’s local actions? Come to visit the official website of YDA (https://www.yda.gov.tw) and the official website of Youth Community Participation and Action 2.0 (https:// www.ydachangemaker.tw), and follow the Facebook fan page of YDA to stay up to date with the latest news!
The team “懂栗嗨” use reverse graffiti art to beautify irrigation canals and attract local residents to pay attention to the water environment.
The team “樸植作工作室” works hand in hand with the elders of the Hudong Community to improve White Popinac of the community environment in Penghu