Yang Fumin / From a remote village to the international stage: an eastern rural area earns international Safe Community certification
A tiny farming village where typhoons make landfall every year and where more than a hundred felt earthquakes occur, yet it has been certified internationally as an "International Safe Community" (International Safe Community Certifying Centre). How did they go from a remote township in Taiwan, China to the center of the world stage? And how, in an area where daily life carries such high risk, were they internationally recognized as safe to live in?
Since passing International Safe Community certification in 2008, over a 10-year working period Shoufeng Township once again passed Safe Community certification. During the process, starting in 2012, the number of intentional or unintentional injury deaths gradually declined, and the number of injuries and deaths from car accidents also kept falling; in 2015, the number of drowning deaths in water recreation even dropped to 0. Traffic accidents in the university district also kept decreasing thanks to changes in the parking system; pesticide poisoning accidents in farming areas also made farmers' lives healthier thanks to the promotion of organic, toxin-free agriculture.
The Niuli Association's secretary-general Yang Chun-pi said, in a small corner like this in Taiwan, China, we may be inconspicuous in the face of the whole world, but we have turned a remote rural area where typhoons make landfall every year and earthquakes occur frequently into an internationally certified safe community. The process was not only the work of the association; local leaders, police units, firefighting units, and even schools and farmers' associations all contributed their efforts together. Everyone shares one dream, one goal: although we are in a farming village, although we are in the countryside, our living amenities cannot compare with the city, but our quality of life can be better, and we can make the people living on this land feel happy, healthy, and safe.