Chinese Name: 金岳社區發展協會 | 陳芃伶
Establishment: 1994
Location: Yilan County, Taiwan
Did You Know?
Yagu Yurow (Chen Peng-ling) is the community director of the Ropwe Community Development Association in Yilan County’s Nan’ao Township. Through years of field research and cultural genealogical activities, she has practically depicted the life of the old Ryohen community, giving the young people of the community a chance to see their own roots. Over the years, Yagu Yurow has been actively engaged in community building to strengthen her community’s sense of identity, not only to rejuvenate the community, but also to revitalize the culture of the Tayal people and help it continue to be passed down from generation to generation.
Yagu Yurow comes from the Tayal community of Ropwe in Nan’ao Township, Yilan. When she was young, she left her hometown to pursue her education, growing up in Luodong. In 2006, she enrolled in the Graduate School of Building and Planning at National Taiwan University, completing a thesis on the old Tayal community of Ryohen. She returned to her community to work on tracing its cultural origins, hoping to internalize the values of her cultural heritage and recreate the uniqueness and richness of local culture so that the traditions of the Tayal people could be valued and perpetuated.
In addition to her research, Yagu Yurow also joined the Ropwe Community Development Association and worked with other Tayal youth to promote the Ropwe Roots Tour project, going back into the mountains to search for old community sites. In the process, through recording community songs, dances, traditional cultural relics, shared memories that have been displaced and scattered with social and environmental changes have had a chance to be reassembled while also reaching out and touching a new generation, inspiring them to identify more with their hometown.
In 2011, Yagu Yurow took over the position of Community Director of the Ropwe Community Development Association. That same year, she led the youth and elders of the community in a project entitled "Walking the Path of Sayun—A Coming of Age for the Youth of Ropwe." The project was also awarded the first prize in the Community Action Plan Awards by the Executive Yuan’s Youth Development Administration, and received NT$300,000 of sponsorship from Taishin Bank to help the tribe fulfill their dreams. The Ropwe Community Development Association also participated in a documentary "Do You Still Remember the Shooting Stars?” directed by Laha Mebow (陳潔瑤). The theme of the film is the desire of the tribal elders to return to the old site and the yearning for their home on the mountain. Through these, young Tayal people were able to get an insight into how their elders struggled with the land to find a way to live in harmony with it, learning some of the wisdom they accrued along the way, inspiring the remnants of the old community to return to their hometown.
The trip to the old site and back on foot would not only take five days, but also be arduous and dangerous, and while the elders’ spirits were willing, their flesh would not be up to the task. The Ropwe Community Development Association then actively sought external resources to launch the "Helicopter Project." In 2013, they raised enough money to take the elders back to the old community site by helicopter. Along with this, the Ropwe Community Development Association also filmed a documentary entitled “The Mark of the Rainbow (畫上彩虹的印記),” recording the raw emotional moments shared between the elders and youths as they shed tears in the old community location.
The Ropwe Community has taken on a new life thanks to the efforts of Yagu Yurow. She led her young compatriots in learning about their heritage, then invited the elders to participate and assist, planting the seeds of hope for the youth to return home. While the journey was not easy and she contemplated giving up, through these genuine interactions with her people, Yagu Yurow found her passion and life’s mission. Her enthusiasm has also inspired many others to join the community-building effort. For example, a group of women from the community has established Sayun Kitchen, not only rebuilding traditional spaces but also providing a base to care for the elders of the community, hold classes for the children, and offer in-depth explorations of the culture. Whether in terms of culture, lifestyle, the environment, production, or tourism, Yagu Yurow continues to hope to create more opportunities for the community, promotes the tribal industry and develops tourism and food services. In 2016, she took the lead in establishing cross-tribal cooperation to expand a broader vision for the Ropwe tribe.
At the same time, she continued to promote the preservation of old tribal cultural assets, from traditional tribal domain models to 3D simulation reproduction of old tribes. In 2018, she even worked with the Tayal Nanhu Mountain Tribal Center to build a VR reconstruction of Ropwe traditional house as a driver of future digital ethnic education, leading the tribe and helping their traditions stay vital as well as ensure that GaGa, the traditional code of law and discipline, can be internalized in the hearts of every member of the Tayal people.
(Photo courtesy of Yagu Yurow)