Community? Seksan&Manoj

 MANOJ: The rise of community education in the anti-poaching movement 

Through:

1. the instruction of political changes 
2. Exposure to mainstream modernisation
3. The rise of NGOs, infiltrating the sense of community by reshaping ideals and recalibrating new common purposes for the villagers.

They start learning humanity’s benefit from conservation, they begin evaluating the opportunity cost: eco-tourism as a venue to make a living.

SEKSAN: We first started this kebun with the heart to step out and helping ourselves attain the community we want. We are the components of this community, and we cannot wait to rely on people in power, or those with titles to help us. Some departments will take a lifetime before they follow through their promises to us. 

Don’t worry about community. Just start doing. When I started Kebun Bangsar a lot of people were teaching me about how to do engagement in communities, and i find that those were all very western ideas— within 1km u have to do this, within 2km u have to do something else, too much structural and intellectual shit going on. 

The idea is to just do it, and the community will form itself around the action. Don’t be too worried, as two people can be enough to start. The more important thing is to just begin. Initially we had no real ‘community’, there were children who were a part of the initiative, to learn and farm, but because of so much protest to start the kebun, they were taken away by their parents. But we started anyway. A year went by and we had some kids from the orphanage, but it wasn’t sustainable. Then the refugee kids came in, and they flourished and made the space their own. They came by themselves. When you have a project at this scale of purpose, the community will come. The momentum of your work will carry the project beyond your expectations and planning. Your efforts will evolve into something grander than yourself, and that is when we can say the community has adopted it. KongsiKL has also evolved so much from where we started, beyond its initial purpose as an incubation space. Because we really do not know when waves of opportunities will land and propel you in new directions in this spirit, you should begin the initiative first, create the platform, make it exist, then your community will flock and land on it.

But now, cutting through the initial ideas, I realise that initiatives like Kebun2 bangsar and kongsiKL are mainly about resources. You need to free up resources for people to use. Land, for example, is a major resource in the city, and Kebun2 Bangsar is about a piece of underutilised land given back to the local community for realistic and innovative use, to feed the underprivileged and teach locals how to prepare for potential food insecurity by growing their own produce.

KongsiKL is about a building— which is also a major resource for young people, because if they have to rent out a space for meaningful work, they won’t do it. If the space is free, they can experiment. The Klangriver Festival came up from the idea that there is a building that we can use and do something ourselves.

Basically the keyword is empowerment. It’s not so much about building a community for community’s sake. There is a purpose that creates the bond, and Dignity For CHildren embodies that ideal, they empower underprivileged kids through education,