Author:LIN Chia-Wei (Chairman of Chia-yi County Community Development Center)

Recently, community jaunt has been booming among rural villages, fish villages, and remote areas in Taiwan. Some are following the policies from the government; some even develop to social enterprise and become financial resolution to the local community. The jaunt fever is not only a new style of travel, but also brought in refreshing energy into rural areas, which is closely related to community works.

Jaunt - New style of travel

Normally on weekends, the farmland is quiet and peaceful. But you can hear a series of bustling sound outbreaks the serene place. A group of young man shuttles in the rice field looking for the secrets hiding beneath. In the eyes of long resident old farmers, the young are chasing for something the old took it for granted. However, for the young from the urban, this is an unforgettable experience.

A jaunt in the community means small scale tour events hosted in local community. Some might call it micro trip or outing; some emphasize its depth in going into details. There are some features in the jaunt: 1.It is a tour based on the local daily environment, not focus on any tourist spot. 2. The jaunt participants mostly limits from 20 to 25 people. 3. The jaunt never appeal participants through luxurious dining or highly-packed schedule; instead, it focuses on local characters and sight, and encourages interactions with local people through its “slow stroll”.

You can consider this type of trip a reflection to modernization or standardization. It is also a way to develop characterized business for local places. Apart from the crazy crowds jump on the bandwagon to theme parks or tourist spots, a jaunt pays more attention to the engagement with local people, and takes more time to figure out the cultural characters and features in particular area. Through experiencing local business or cultural affairs, visitors get to know more about a place, instead of browsing through the surroundings without any impression left.

However, in planning the jaunt in community, people usually examine the experience through visitor’s perspective, or care more about what visitors learn. Less feedback are taken care of from the “executor” of local people. Through introducing the local area to others, is there any changes in local people’s mind? What can locals learn? Can this trigger new vision and imagination towards local community works? This is what social workers really care.

Social mobilization, care and empowerment

First of all, for local people involved in the jaunt, the direct benefit is financial independency. More and more NGOs in Taiwan put efforts on raising fund, instead of relying on the subsidies from the government. The most direct positive influence on hosting jaunts is to receive income through preparing an event, being tour guides, serving activities or meals. It helps the community to earn incomes from variable methods. And the income not only benefits to the local NGOs, but also to the small/medium scale shops, local business, and farmers. The whole community receives the positive influence and finally it improves local economy and the feature industry.

Considering the software development in the community, community jaunts must involve local residences. It is composed by a series of local knowledges includes historical, geographical, cultural, religious factors and customs. The works of giving tours, preparing local-flavor meals, cleaning maintenances also needs local residences’ to join. For example, the itinerary planning, jobs and position checking must be discussed beforehand, and the return of condition and feedback reading also needs to be done by everyone. Imperceptibly, the chemistry in discussion will develop among the community. It will become a good opportunity to cultivate the mobility in community and to form a group consciousness.

Besides, the jaunt can be considered a strategy to the issues of aging society and long-term care in farmer, fish villages and remote areas. We have to face the solemn problem on the common eldercare issue that elder people are left behind when younger generation moves to urban areas for career. If the definition of community eldercare system indicates that the community should provide eldercare services for families needed, then to provide the eldercare service domestically or at somewhere similar to domestic environment, so that those in need  can live a  life as normally as possible, is the ultimate goal for community eldercare system. The eldercare mentioned here doesn’t refer to long-term care or professional care for the handicapped, but we solely want to think, if there’s a better way, for the minority in the community to live with the help of the local power.

Through hosting the jaunts, the local community gets the chance to develop traditional skills, and through practicing together, an interactive, supportive group will form, eventually be able to provide proper care and support to the community. People will be able to support themselves, become highly independent. And the practice of basic living skills might be able to bring out their potentials.

Finally, the hosting of the light trip is also a progress of community empowerment for members. To briefly explain, self-empowerment takes understanding of one’s self so that to achieve the goals and making progress. The purpose of community work is also to make local residences and local leaders understand more about their own community, and to develop a suitable project and service system. In preparing the jaunt, local residences spend more time to observe their living environment, learn how to make a plan for visitors. The ideas and experiences shared from local housewives and elders are also important in designing the jaunt. The interaction between individuals and the environment are crucial when incubating community empowerment.

From the perspective of community development supervisors, no matter community mobilization, community care or community empowerment, the core value is to build up a community’s function, so that a community can survive independently and make the most of local values. In the sense of social works, the community jaunt might be merely a new medium, to trigger new imaginations towards social work methodology. However, what’s important is that, the main purpose of community work is to see and respond the need of local residence. The community work shouldn’t be merely to provide social welfare, but to work with local residence to achieve a higher value of locality.

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