‧ Chinese Name: 鼎農村試驗教育基地
‧ Established: 2018
‧ Location: Tainan (South Taiwan)
Did You Know?
Tainan City's Xuejia District (學甲區), famous for its milkfish industry, is facing a dilemma of a declining birth rate and a labor shortage. To preserve the unique local culture and customs, in 2018, then-28-year-old local youth Chen Yin-feng (陳胤丰) stepped up, founding Dhome Experimental Education Base to cultivate the front-line agricultural education.
Having participated in farmers’ association activities since he was a child, after graduating from college Chen set about the work of "paddy field ecological education promotion" in Taipei, visiting paddy fields all over Taiwan to observe the environment and conduct ecological tours. A long-time advocate of childhood education, Chen was surprised that Taiwanese children were not familiar with the land they grew up on. This made him worry about how Taiwan’s rural culture could survive into the future, and this inspired him to step back from the hustle and bustle of Taipei and head back to his hometown, Tainan, to start all over again.
After returning home, Chen first set up a studio, organized activities, and spread his ideas through action. However, despite investing all his savings, what he got in return was the discovery that building a connection with the local area was a real challenge. The key, he says, lay in the fact that local residents still had a weak conception of local culture and community awareness.
The area lacked a concept of community building for a long time, so after returning to his hometown, Chen had to lay the foundations from scratch. To set down a foundation of local identity, Chen had to rely on a team of partners and his savings, working bit by bit to build it up.
Even after three years of hard work, the results were still limited. At this critical moment, partners chose to leave the team, and coupled with the problem of local promotion, which was difficult to solve in a short period of time, Chen found himself under so much pressure that he almost considered giving up.
However, it is always darkest before the dawn, and thanks to his persistence and management, Chen’s applications to the "Youth Village Program" of the Ministry of Culture and the "Youth Return Program" of the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau were successful, and former partners were once again willing to lend a hand.
What Chen Yin-feng found most valuable was that the local school system was quite supportive of his ideas, with four schools from kindergarten to elementary school willing to work with him. What surprised him even more was that the children who had participated in the cultivation of local crops, who were originally reluctant to bask in the sun or touch the soil, became more enthusiastic to participate in class and group work.
The promotion of local courses has gone on for 10 years, and more than 1,000 children have participated. Chen says that there are two students who participated in the program who, after starting junior high, voluntarily returned to serve as volunteers, proving that the concept of rural cultural heritage was beginning to bud.
Chen's efforts are not limited to farming culture, however. In his first year back in his home town, he took part in the famous local "Back to Baijiao Pilgrimage Procession (白礁謁祖遶境祭典)" with his mother, which made him start to think about how to transform the unique local religious culture into an in-depth experiential course so that young people could have the opportunity to experience the vigor of Taiwanese temple culture and learn more about Xuejia.
He invited the local elders to share and lead the students to actually participate in the procession so that the junior high school students changed from simply observing the lively roles to being actual participants. This helped them experience the unique local religious culture through life experience, and at the same time, this participation and the resulting word of mouth have helped this piece of intangible cultural heritage continue on.
But for Chen Yin-feng, the most important thing is to stay true to that original inspiration, to start with educating young children to building a "local identity" from an early age, which is the key to truly building toward encouraging the local youth to return to their home town. Chen is committed to the philosophy that experience creates life value, and this is at the heart of Dhome Experimental Education Base's activities. Such "down-to-earth" experiments make the rural culture and education scene really come to life and seem more deeply rooted in the area, thus helping create an atmosphere of community building. The Dhome Experimental Education Base has thus become a medium for young people to return to their roots, helping them see the possibilities that lie in their rural home towns should they decide to come back.
(Photo courtesy of Dhome Experimental Education Base)