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IDFC2019
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41th street filled with history and potential for bright future of Yangon city
Natsu Kubota
There are the large number of historical and colonial-era buildings in Yangon. As you can see in the picture, each residential building face each other and create space between buildings which frames “community” here. In addition, Yangon historically keep accepting many immigrants such as Chinese, Indian and Burmese so we feel atmosphere of diversity ethnically and religiously. This is the first new value that I found. However, these buildings got a lot of damages and demolished to rebuild new facilities because proper preservation was not implemented by city government for long time and due to inadequate infrastructure. When I walked the back alleys, I saw that streets were full of wastes and smells flunky. Meanwhile, the street in this picture has totally different views from them. The walls are painted colorfully and come space became playground for children. This renovation was implemented by organization called “Doh Eain” is a multiple social enterprise in Yangon. More than just renovate these alleys, they are prioritizing involving “community” in the all process of renovation. They focus on communicating with people and use time to research their “community” to figure out their unique history and relationship between residents. They also welcome their ideas to improve their community. For example, they make small library because of needs from community. Encouraging community members to patriate provides to interact with neighborhood in the city and helps people maintain the clean and comfortable environment. Even in Japan, developed country in terms of historical conservation, I can see that historical building are demolished by owners at ordinal residential areas and also community bond became weak. In this regards, we Japanese have many things to learn from this activity. This is second value that I was impressed.
How do you define your “community”?
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