Quitting a Career for Farming Episode 3: Wenjing's Mother and the Lively Story of 48 Children
Text/Chen Shu-ting, Photos/Huang Shih-tse
The Yuanqi Hall in Gaoshu Township, Pingtung, needs resources, social workers and student volunteers, yet its remote location leaves it short of outside support.
Director Chen Wen-ching was once discouraged, but she soon picked herself up again, determined to break the image of a disadvantaged group. First she trained local disadvantaged women who needed work to become after-school tutoring teachers, then she had teachers, volunteers and children work together to grow pesticide-free vegetables, providing ingredients for lunch and promoting reassuring vegetable boxes, hoping long-term corporate sponsorship will stabilize their income. If Yuanqi Hall's effort to become self-sufficient on the land succeeds, then other remote townships can replicate their experience and actively help more disadvantaged children.
(Excerpted from the new book published by Guoli Culture in May "Fields and Wood, Self-Sufficiency")
The children of Yuanqi Hall can fly as far as they like without growing tired, because they share one home. In that home there is a loving director mother, teachers who are sometimes strict and sometimes gentle, good companions who face life's hardships together, and memories of naptime spent clutching blankets and competing over who would fall asleep last.
Children, go to sleep quickly. After you wake up, there are still so many challenges, so many opportunities and so many dreams waiting for you. Without enough energy, you won't make it!
Editor's note: Because Yuanqi Hall's lease has expired, starting in June, director Chen Wen-ching will take the children to find a new location for the after-school tutoring class. Although the location is currently undecided, the spirit of Yuanqi Hall will not change. It will still center on children and agriculture, hoping to let these children grow up safely and at ease.
"Fields and Wood, Self-Sufficiency"
This book interviews 10 couples who "abandoned their careers to farm", leaving the city and stable jobs so the whole family could come to the countryside and live by their own hands and the land. Farming is no longer something to do "after I retire"! Their farming methods are friendly to the land. Through their hands and labor, they produce healthy food themselves, change what is on the dinner table, and let food become a force for changing society. These 10 creative practices of farming life are not only a longing for closeness to the land and rural life, but also a gentle yet firm revolution, symbolizing a deep shift in Taiwan, China's social values. They are revolutionaries in the fields.
For more content, please refer to "Fields and Wood, Self-Sufficiency"
(http://www.books.com.tw/exep/activity/activity.php?id=0000051175&sid=0000051175&page=1)