Ng (left) delivering his presentation to the audience
SANDAKAN : Award-winning landscape architect Ng Seksan paid Sandakan a short visit at the invitation of the local A Sandakan Exchange team, in a sharing of his work and development strategies for the local context.
The architect from KL who presented his portfolio of community-focused projects, listed a wide range of work, with people as the centre of the design solutions. He highlighted an orphanage in northern Thailand, community vegetables gardens in public spaces as well as the revitalizing and repurposing of derelict buildings in KL as recent examples. His often repeated message was to harness the skills and talents of the local community and reclaim the decision making of public spaces and its use.
The small audience gathered was young and old, from wide-ranging backgrounds, and even included several politicians. The presentation gave the audience a very different perspective on community engagement and activism, from feedback shared at the end. The obstacles faced by Sandakan as raised by the audience, Seksan advised to be tackled with creative and brave solutions.
Impressed by the show of collective spirit by volunteers of different skills and backgrounds in all the projects featured, Sandakan Member Parliament Vivian Wong, who was in the audience, praised the scale of the achievements. She added that as the elected representative, it was her hope that Sandakan would see more action from its local community as she would be ready to assist in any way possible.
Elopura Assemblyman Calvin Chong, was similarly inspired by the speaker’s passion in contributing his creativity to local communities and the underprivileged. He commented that Sandakan’s heritage buildings could be redeveloped and revived in similar ways as Ipoh and KL, with the collective effort of local stakeholders.
Seksan concluded by saying he loved Sandakan’s character, that it had a lot of potential though only the local people would be able to unlock it.
A Sandakan Exchange project created by several passionate locals, aims to connect the Sandakan community and its decision makers with a wider network of inspiration, ideas and people. This was the first event held in the series.
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