Yongan Community, Luye Township, Taitung County

As the saying goes, "It takes ten years to sharpen a sword." Community development is like a marathon. While Taiwan has been engaged in community development for 30 years, Yongan Community has been actively involved for 25 years, successfully transforming this rural village in Eastern Taiwan—Yongan Community—through various community development methods. Yongan Village, Luye Township, Taitung County, was formerly known as Lulao. It covers an area of approximately 15.1 square kilometers and has a population of about 1,500 people. The entire village is situated on a hilly plateau, making cultivation difficult. In its early years, it was one of the poorest villages in Luye Township. To ensure residents could live in eternal peace and stability (永安), Lulao was renamed Yongan in 1948. Over the past two decades, local residents initiated a series of transformation efforts, enabling Yongan to leap forward as a nationwide model community, proving that <Flying is not a dream>. In 1993, the Yongan Community Development Association of Luye Township, Taitung County, was established, initiating community development work. In 2001, several young people who returned to their hometown, along with many like-minded individuals, launched community development efforts. They submitted Yongan Community's first-ever community development proposal to the government, embarking on an epoch-making rural community movement. To comprehensively improve the living environment of the entire village, Yongan Community revitalized both its soft and hard infrastructure. Over several years, this led to significant changes in Yongan Community's public spaces. Currently, Yongan Community is striving towards becoming a sustainable development community, implementing a user-pays mechanism, promoting eco-tourism and the industrialization of environmental education, and establishing a set of community operational models in preparation for an advanced version of a sustainable community. In terms of community cultural heritage, Yongan Community founded the Lulao Community Newspaper in 2001. This community newspaper has now transformed into the Luye Township Newspaper. The community actively promotes cultural preservation and revitalization. Yongan hosts a village-wide New Year's rice pounding event three days before Lunar New Year's Eve each year, and a Jade Dragon Spring Midday Water Collection activity on Dragon Boat Festival. Over 25 years of promoting community development, Yongan has also published four village histories and two story picture books. Additionally, there have been numerous media reports and community documentaries, allowing the story and achievements of Yongan's community development to be seen by more people. With an indomitable spirit and years of hard work, Yongan residents transformed a poor traditional rural village into a classic legend of the 'back mountain.' Yongan Community evolved into a nationwide model community, having been selected as an outstanding community development team at the Council for Cultural Affairs' Community Development Annual Conference in 2001 and 2010, and awarded an excellent prize for in-depth community tourism by the Ministry of Culture in 2010. It was also named one of the First National Top Ten Classic Agricultural and Fishing Villages. Furthermore, in 2013, it officially passed certification as an environmental education facility and venue, and received the Grand Prize (Community Group) in the First National Environmental Education Awards. In 2018, it won the gold medal in the national 'First Golden Rural Village' awards. Although Yongan Community is not a pioneer in promoting community development in Taiwan, over the past 25 years, the Yongan team has been dedicated to revitalizing this traditional rural village in Eastern Taiwan. We set challenging goals every year, constantly pushing ourselves and daring to innovate, transforming into a national gold medal community. Not only have community industries been upgraded and residents' lives improved, but young people have also returned home for employment and entrepreneurship, and it has become a favorite destination for new immigrants. Just like Yongan's sky, where hot air balloons and paragliders are often seen soaring freely, carrying everyone's dreams to new heights.