Four days into the workshop, we are now preparing for the
final presentation tomorrow. Tomorrow we prepare posters of our findings and
ideas and present them, not to an academic jury, but to the stakeholders of
ZoHo. Since the work today was basically building up on the ideas from the last
three days and since tomorrow is our last day at the site, I thought it would
be a good idea to talk to some of the people working in this action plan and
find out what they feel is going on here. And, needless to say, the thoughts
and opinions were interesting, at the very least.
So, let us not talk about who is planning to do what, we
shall come back to that tomorrow. Instead let us see what people have to say
about this place and this workshop. It is really amazing how, when you bring in
people from different countries, from all over the world, to work on a project
like this, everyone seems to have a different perception. This project shows the
perception on the concept of problem, (in) security, informality and
opportunities. The problem, many perceive, comes from abandonment here, and
they feel that abandonment of areas could give rise to problems, similar or
dissimilar, in their home countries as well. Denada Veizaj from Albania and Emina
Ahmetović from Bosnia agree to this, as they feel the primary problem in this
area is that of abandonment – an issue that could easily surface back home. However,
the approaches of working would be rather different. But then again, some of us
perceive this abandonment as a challenge only because there are very few people
in Rotterdam. In Africa this wouldn’t be an issue, says Benjamin Animpa Osei from
Ghana, as it will be impossible to find such abandoned place. A building, once
abandoned, will be occupied as a squatter settlement thus the problem, the
issue, may be rather different there.
Moving on to the security issue, Argel Joseph Tria from
Phillipines, shares his initial surprise, where he didn’t see any insecurity
here, however after talking to people around here, the perception of security became
clearer as an issue. Andrés Salazar from
Colombia agrees that the issue here is more of the perception of security
rather than the actual security; you simply don’t see people in the streets, so
there is no interaction between them, which causes the sense of abandonment, therefore
giving the perception of insecurity. Perhaps it is true, as Hugo Herrera, also
from Colombia, puts it; “Insecurity is not really understood here, they should
come to our countries to understand what insecurity really is”. However, these
issues are not really seen as problems by Mikel Alvarez from Spain, the fact
that there are more young people attracted to work into ZoHo and that there is
a high percentage of young people in the neighbourhood (as compared to any
other age group) is seen more as an interesting opportunity for civil
participation. Adding on to that, Andrés Cevallos from Ecuador,
feels this place is interesting as even though he doesn’t feel this place is
bad to begin with, he does find it interesting to see that negative areas are
perceived as a potential area for unrest and crime.
There is just so much more to work with…
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