PeoPo’s Your Shoot visits Taixi’s “Dream Village”

PeoPo’s Your Shoot visits Taixi’s “Dream Village” 

Nationwide annual events organized by PeoPo Citizen Journalism Platform encourage citizen journalists to pick up a camera and get involved in public affairs, recording the stories that matter to local communities. For this years’ second Your Shoot event, the PeoPo team visited Taixi Village in Changhua’s Dacheng Township, where the close proximity to Formosa Plastics Group’s Sixth Naphtha Cracking Project has resulted in extremely dire air pollution. Additional issues of an aging population and a serious outflow of young people mean that only a collaborative effort can safeguard the community’s future development. 

Taixi Village began attracting interest from the outside world following the publication of “When the South Wind Blows”, a long-term photographic record of the village by photographers Hsu Cheng-tang (許震唐) and Chung Sheng-hsiung (鐘聖雄). Fortunately, the crisis exposed in the publication has been a catalyst for change in the village, attracting investment from a large foodstuff entrepreneur aimed at transforming the village and creating a better future. Marching forward on this journey behind the slogan “Dream Village”, this year, the village has spared no effort in its community-wide initiative to inject new life into the area, including establishing Taixi Image Museum; renting land to plant thousands of neem trees; renting houses to offer work-exchange programs; providing free medical consultations; and staging various performances. Through capturing all these captivating local stories through the lens and spreading them far and wide, citizen journalists hope to play their part in attracting public awareness to these important local issues. 

URL：https://www.peopo.org/news/333851

(以下是中文對照)

PeoPo踹拍 台西許願村

PeoPo公民新聞平台每年都會規劃踹拍活動，帶領公民記者拿起鏡頭，關心公共事物、記錄在地故事，今年PeoPo的第二場踹拍，我們來到了彰化大城鄉的台西村，當地因為鄰近六輕的關係，讓空氣污染相當嚴重，加上人口老化、年輕人外移，未來的發展需要大家共同關心。

彰化縣大城鄉台西村，因為攝影工作者者許震唐、鐘聖雄，把長期記錄的影像出版《南風》影像故事，獲得熱烈迴響，也吸引外界重新關注台西村。不過危機也是轉機，有食品業者自掏腰包投入社區改造，共同走出悲傷迎向陽光。以「許願村」的概念重新出發，除了今年台西影像館的成立，並且租地種植千株苦楝樹、租屋供打工換宿、義診、表演等，大家一同打拼，希望重新翻轉社區新氣象。這些在地的故事經由公民記者的鏡頭記錄下來，希望傳遞給更多人知道，並共同關注。