Technical Visit @ World Urban Forum 9 - Dignity
I had the pleasure of attending the World Urban Forum 9 (WUF9) organised by the United Nations Habitat in Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia last week.
Just a little about WUF, it is a is a non-legislative technical forum convened by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) held since 2002. (Find out more at http://wuf9.org/about-wuf/)
Signed up for a Technical Tour which brought us to visit various case study sites, to show how various communities come together to rejuvenate their urban environment and transform their communities.
The first stop brought us to Eat X Dignity, which is a social enterprise cafe and creative space. With a mission to break the poverty cycle through quality education, Eat X Dignity provided training platform for underprivileged youths at the cafe itself. Income generated are then channeled back to support the children education.
We were honoured to be hosted by Dignity’s founder, Mr Satvinder. He shared that education should not be a cookie cutter. One cannot keep looking at he poor and assume that you are doing something for them. In fact, they can show you all that you could know. One challenge Mr Satvinder shared was how to motivate the students to see that working in a cafe is a great way to study.
“Children here in general do not like science. But when you teach them how to cook, they have to learn science and maths in the process. How much ingredients to add, how different ingredients come together to produce certain fragrance and taste. These are all science and maths. So we teach them through hands on learning”
Mr Satvinder added that he believes that one cannot do an education in a bubble. Quoting him, “If you educate them in a bubble, you will end up with kids living in a bubble. So we believe very much in them going out to the world, and learn through every day interaction with the community.”
Mr Satvinder added that in Dignity, children and teens here work across different age groups. So this community school do not segregate the different kids by age. “We want them to learn to work together as a group. Because in reality, you never have a community of the same age. So we want to train the children when young, to know how to deal with people of different age groups. So a 9 year old will learn how to respect the 12 year olds, and the young one can learns from the older ones how to be a leader. And sometimes when working in the cafe, you also need to learn to deal with the adults. So it is very hands on, and holistic learning from the everyday community. These are valuable skillsets that can set them apart, and empower them to be more equipped than mainstream kids.”
What i found most inspiring was his view on working with the underprivileged community. “It takes a life to impact a life. You need to really go down and work together with the community. The poor are looked down upon enough. The world have enough negative comments about them. Why we still need to emphasize on the negative? Why not celebrate something positive together with them?”
Right outside the cafe was the Dignity Kitchen Garden, which provides herbs for use in the cafe. What I found most beautiful was how the garden was fenceless. Our guide Crystal was sharing with us that the herbs and gardens are open to the public and community and that they are free to take whatever they like. And so far the garden is still very much taken care of.
We also had the chance to visit two other living “classrooms” of Dignity, Sew X Dignity and Cut X Dignityt. While Eat X Dignity provide learning experience through working in a cafe, the Sew & Cut wing of Dignity provides the kids a learning experience through sewing and hair cutting services. This is so as to tap on the interest of different kids, and the kids are free to rotate “schools” every now and then should they want to learn new skillsets!
Sew X Dignity kids also showed us their products which they used unwanted cloth from shops to make! Very beautiful and a great celebration of local design.
Cut X Dignity which uses hair cutting service to provide kids with a learning platform to acquire skills to provide hair cutting services.
After visiting the community classrooms, we were also brought to see their roof garden, which also provide kids with skills of urban farming. One of the student also shared his dream of going to different places around the world to bring back different agricultural urban farming methods back to Dignity Roof Garden to make the roof garden alot more beautiful. Crystal our guide also shared that there are plans to bring in a urban roof bee hive! things sure are getting exciting at Dignity!
Lastly, we visited the Dignity classrooms where they provide classes for newly entered kids, to train them to learn basic knowledge and learn to express themselves. Their teacher shared that they use multi-story and child centered hands on method to encourage children here to learn by experience.
“For children learning here, many are from underprivileged backgrounds, with troubled families. many cannot express themselves well, and do not even know how to dream. So it is very important to firstly empower the kids to provide them with a safe environment and platform to think about what they wish to learn. It is also important to have this safe space for them to solve problems, and give them a sense of self worth.”
The teacher shared “It takes about 6 months for the child to open up to us, sometimes even longer. All the students here stay with us for 2 years, some even 3 years. We need to build a bond and trust first before learning can even take place. It is easier to teach them when there is a bond and trust.”
What caught my attention most was the mini “community noticeboard”. Their teacher shared that in the classroom, even a 9 year old can become a leader.
“All these are meeting minutes jotted by the students. In this classroom, a child can chair a meeting. The children manage and lead the ‘community’ meeting and solve their problems. This is also a way for them to learn how to problem solve and interact with their peers.”
It was indeed a very meaningful and heartening journey to Dignity. If you are interested to find out more about Dignity, please do check out their website at http://dignifyforchildren.org. If you are in Malaysia and wish to collaborate with them in one way or another, feel free to contact them too at [email protected].
Will be sharing 2 more journeys in the technical tour in due course! stay tuned :)
