Category

Businesses and Organizations

Description of "Our Community"

Luchou City is situated at the west bank of the downstream of Tamshui River, and is opposite from Shilin District, Taipei City, on the northeast side, adjacent to Wugu Township on the west, and to Sanchung City on the southeast. It is in a shape of vertical rhombus with an area of 8,321 sq.km. Among the 29 townships and cities of Taipei  County, it is just a little larger than   Yunghe  City. Luchou was originally an alluvial sandbank, thus, it has flat land and fertile land, which is suitable for farming and living. However, due to frequent floods in the past, the development of the area was slow. Ten years ago, because the central government passed the “Sanchung Younghe Urban Development Plan”, and the completion of the initial flood prevent project and Erchung Floodway, the problem of flood was solved. Also with convenient access to   Taipei  City, the migrated population increased. Thus, Luchou  Township was advanced to   Luchou  City  in 1997.

Summary of Our Project

      In a small alley of   Luchou  City,  Taipei  City, there is a small and simple bookstore. The 40-ping bookstore has a reading room within its limited space, holds 12 reading meetings per week,  and even provides snacks and drinks to the attending parents and children. This is the story of A-fu’s Bookstore and its owner, Mr. Wen-fu Hsiao.

Our Computer and Internet Access

The school network is 100MB fiber cable, directly connected to TANet. Most students have computers at home, and could access the Internet through ADSL.

Problems We Had To Overcome

1. lessons reduced our time on the project

Each member of the team has to attend the parent-comfort class as well as such interest groups as English, piano and painting from Monday to Friday. Saturdays were also filled with various interest classes. So the only time we could use for this project was our noon break, which was from 12:30AM to 1:00PM, during which we discussed our activities and wrote reports. As for those out-school activities, we had to ask for leaves from the interest groups and parent-comfort class.

2. It took all we could do to finish the job

In order to get a deeper understanding of A-fu’s bookstore and uphold its enterprising spirit, we planned various activities, such as interviews, playing drama, and painting. So we had to learn how to write plays, prepare customs, conduct paintings and interviews, make presentations. The most important thing was, we had to learn how to make plans, cooperate and coordinate, and communicate with grown-up peoples.

3. Parents’ worries

Sometimes we had to ask for leaves from the interest groups and parent-comfort class to carry out various activities, and wrote daily logs at evening. Some parents began to worry that such activities would affect the children’s study. The teachers have to communicate with parents about the nature and feature of the Cyberfair project, and asked for their support.

4. Approaching the community

We used to believe that we could learn a lot of knowledge by just sitting in class. Now we began to realize by approaching the community and interviewing the local people, we could gain a lot of experience that we could never get in class. We were grateful towards our teachers, who made all these activities possible.

The project not only required varied abilities, but also extra time

Our Project Sound Bite

     The topic of the project, “A-fu’s bookstore” was originally prepared for the classmates in the last year. Due to some reasons, it was left to this year. Our teachers had been giving their support to A-fu and his wife, telling them “Keep it going, we are going to make you the topic of our project.” So we were so lucky to walk into A-fu’s Bookstore, enjoy reading and the kindness of the couple, and convey our message to other people in various ways. We believe we are the most fortunate and blessed children in the world. Despite some people said that Luchou was a culture desert, we found ourselves lucky enough to live with A-fu in Luchou.