Community-Based Labour Right Project

Empowerment and Community:

A Participatory Research Project

A Two-Year Proposal

(July 2003 - June 2005)

Grassroots Development Centre, Tsuen Wan

January 2003

PROPOSAL FOR

A PARTICIPATORY Research PROJECT

Background

The Grassroots Development Center (GDC) is a community-based resource and empowerment center formed by community residents and voluntary organizers concerned with the rights of disadvantaged members (the elderly, the new immigrants and the underclass people)of the Tsuen Wan community. With support from the Center, a number of grassroots groups have been organized since the early 1990s to focus on specific areas of public concern, especially in terms of housing and labour issues. As these groups develop, the organizers and group members are increasingly aware of the need for a stronger cultural intervention into the community in which more effective place-bound resistance strategies can be developed.

A commercial and service center that once hosted thriving industries, Tsuen Wan, one of Hong Kong's first "new towns", encapsulates in many ways the changes that are transforming Hong Kong in processes of globalization. The rapid relocation of manufacturing to South China since the 1980s dislocated its industrial base and put into question the livelihood of its largely working class residents. The building of the MTR, the new airport and Disneyland, on the other hand, transform the town into a regional transportation hub. The result is a halfway gentrification of the community as private developers and the HKSAR Government accelerate the pace of urban renewal, turning the area around the MTR station into a middle class commercial and residential zone. These developments enhance the value of Tsuen Wan for businesses and middle classes, but they also threaten the interests, even survival, of its more disadvantaged residents. Cases of grassroots resistance include the Sai Lau Kok incident in 1982 over the building of the MTR, rooftop action in 1996, and most recently, the struggle over the demolition of the Wah Kee Industrial Building. Low-income new arrivals, mostly from Mainland China, however, continue to stream into the area to join their families or search for low-cost accommodations. It shows that Tsuen Wan is still a living place for the poor and the marginal, and thus a place to resist capitalist globalizing forces and state developmentalist ideology.

Mission of GDC

  To highlight people’s power, social participation and communal rights, and to reclaim the community as a living place for the everyday practices, imagination and development of its residents.

  To enhance grassroots culture and value in the community, and thus community power to resist global capitalism and statist developmentalism;

  To facilitate the development of empowerment groups and link up collective actions to fight for basic rights deprived by the state and the market;

  To generate new social actions bottom up and articulate across boundaries action groups of diverse concerns (such as the elderly rights center, the labor rights commune, the housing rights group, the green and the video power groups).

Strategies of GDC

¨  To provide training in community-rooted mobilization, and to encourage the self-organization of disadvantaged groups to develop their own potentials.

¨  To provide emerging grassroots groups with resources and support, and a base for further development.

¨  To articulate community-based social resistance by promoting exchanges of experiences, mutual learning and coordination of struggles across grassroots groups.

Project Aims

The Participatory Project aims to promote communal participation and cultural intervention in Tsuen Wan as a place where people live and make their living. It seeks to evaluate the impact of various development and redevelopment projects on the life prospects of people that have to depend on Tsuen Wan for survival, and promote changes that can give disadvantaged groups a larger say in processes that are transforming their homes and neighborhoods.

Our objectives include:

1. To create a cultural agora for community participation and collective rethinking of the development of Tsuen Wan as a living place;
2. To understand Tsuen Wan residents' experiences and responses to changes in their neighborhood, with special reference to the effects of the urban renewal projects;
3. To identify and develop community resources that can facilitate attempts to improve the positions of disadvantaged residents of Tsuen Wan;
4. To promote awareness on issues surrounding urban renewals among participants in the project and other residents of Tsuen Wan.
5. To facilitate self-organization of the grassroots in Tsuen Wan through building up network between various groups and individuals.

Project Plan

Participatory Research: Know the Place

Re-presenting Community: Tell the Place

Creating Agora: Change the Place

Participatory Research: Know the Place

Stage One (July 2003 - June 2004) - Visits and Interviews

  Participants are recruited among members of groups affiliated with the Center (mostly Tsuen Wan residents) and university students.

  Two workshops are held to brief the participants on the general conditions of Tsuen Wan and the urban renewal projects.

  A field study around Tsuen Wan will be organized for the participants and generate a sense of familiarity.

  As a strategic case for intensive study, a street block that is close to streets designated for urban renewal and a major recipient of residents displaced by the renewal process will be selected through consultation with residents knowledgeable about the area.

  Teams of two to four participants led by an experienced organizer will carry out door-to-door interviews with residents of the selected block. A questionnaire will be prepared as a reminder of the information that would be helpful to gather. However, the participants will be advised to engage in more in-depth conversation with the residents and encourage them to express their own views.

  Results of the interviews will be compiled to form a database. All participants in the study are encouraged to provide individual reports on their experiences and observations.

  Research findings will be discussed among the participants to provide pictures of changes in Tsuen Wan and the positions of different groups in the processes.

Re-presenting Community: Tell the Place

Stage Two (July 2004 - December 2004) Forums, Videos and Mapping

  "Public forums" will be held to invite community feedback on the research and to encourage further discussion of related community issues.

  To follow up on the discussions, active community residents will be invited to participate in a video project to tell their stories about changes in Tsuen Wan.

  In producing their own videos, participants will be encouraged to elaborate their own themes and develop a more active cultural practice in relation to their community.

  Creation of the community resources map (GIS) of an area is executed through the survey of everyday residents’ activity space and the location and frequency of service and facilities of them.

  GDC and Video Power will provide equipment and technical advice to facilitate the video project.

  Contacts built up in the project will be mobilized to prepare for an action group to follow up on issues that emerged in the process of research and video production.

Creating Agora: Change the Place

Stage Three (January 2005 – June 2005) Performance and Action

  Appropriate space for open cultural performance will be searched for and tested during the first two stages of the project, in the hope of securing one or two permanent spaces for public gathering.

  Video, music, story-telling and other cultural performances will be organized to enhance a culture of empowerment and promote the value of community self-determination.

  By capturing public spaces for stories that address their concerns and express their expectations about community life, grassroots citizens of Tsuen Wan can create their own cultural agora.

  Meetings involving all participants will be held to review the implications of the research and video project as social processes and assess the significance of the follow-up actions.

  One Action Group for Community Concern is expected after one- year activities. Second year community organizing will be discussed among the residents. Hard fight is prepared.

Project Organization

A project team composed of two active community residents, two organizers and two university-based academics, and one PhD student will be responsible for carrying out and monitoring the progress of the project. All these team members will take active part in the project, joining the action research and participating in all the cultural forums and activities in the later stage. In view of the heavy workload ahead, a full-time research facilitator to serve as the coordinator who oversees the day-to-day operation of the project will be requested.

Project Team Members:

Ng Kin Wing (Project Coordinator, GDC)

Cheung Man Wai (Organizer, GDC)

Chiu Chi Sum (Community Resident)

Joanne Ng (Organizer, GDC)

Lee Chui King (Community Resident)

Leung Chi Yuen (PhD candidate, HKUST)

Pun Ngai (HKUST)

Tang Wing Shing (HKBU)

Toshio Mizuuchi (Osaka City U.)

Project Budget (Two Year)

Items

GDC provide office base

TOTAL

GDC will contribute for the rent and provide infrastructural support such as computer equipment and other basic office facilities.

HKUST (Pun Ngai) will contribute HK $100,000 to this project.

HKBU (Tang Wing Shing) will contribute HK $100,000 to this project. (has to be discussed)

Osaka City U. (Toshio) will contribute HK $ 225,000 to this project for two years (has to be discussed)

Contact Person

Mr. Ng Kin Wing Project Coordinator

Grassroots Development Centre

Tel: 24110196 Fax: 29449904

Appendix

1.  Introduction to GDC

2. Press reports on GDC’s activities in the past few years

3.  Introduction to Elderly Rights Concern Group

4.  Introduction to Labor Rights Commune

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