Kuchinoerabu Island, which is located at Yakushima-cho of Kagoshima, is the depopulated remote island of 110 people. We found humanity that is almost lost at urban areas in lifestyle of Kuchinoerabu Island and had aimed creating the community revitalizing model based on ownership of that area, collaborating with islanders from viewpoints of Architecture & Education.
This project is based on fieldwork consisting of construction and management of an elementary school in Kimbondo, a small village near Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. This project started in 2008 and this year the project is reaching its 9th year. This project is working from three divisions; Yoko Hasebe Lab as education team, Hiroto Kobayashi Lab. (KobLab) as construction team, and the African Medical Research Laboratory as medical team. Through collaboration, this project aims for a better education in DRC.
We do English workshop to bring global perspective into public middle school. Our workshop is for middle school students to exchange culture and learn English not only as a school subject but also as a communication tool.
This project is aimed to establish the local-academic collaboration between the Keio University Shonan Fujisawa Campus (SFC) and the neighboring Endo, Fujisawa community. The Endo area is known for its variety of locally grown fruits and vegetables as well as its locally raised meat. Ever since the project started in 2015, members have been working with local farmers and other community members to find more ways to promote the history and value of the community’s culture. By hosting events with the local community, this project is hoping for a sustainable relationship with Endo and Keio SFC.
Local Active-learning Project This project is working on the community revitalization achieved through education. Our field is Kaida Highlands in Kiso city, Nagano prefecture and in this region, there is only one junior high school with 36 students in total. This makes it hard for the students to feel the diversity in their daily life. Last year, the junior high school students in Kaida Highlands deepened the understanding of their own culture through the cross-cultural communication with the exchange students from SFC. Also, some of them interacted with the university students from Democratic Republic of Congo via Skype. We are trying not only to create an opportunity for the students to widen their perspective but also to revitalize the community by making a new flow of people.