The "Flying Classroom" is made from corrugated metal panels. Chen Junlang helps Aboriginal children rise to the challenge of overcoming their circumstances and turning their lives around. (Jimmy Lin)

"Only a child with a healthy body and mind can grow into an adult who can provide a healthy home. And you can only build a healthy, self-reliant community when you have healthy homes."

Chen Junlang, now 45, returned to his hometown of Zhiben in Taitung County eight years ago. With two children of his own, he has become known to the community as "Pa Chen." He has established a library and organized a samba group, a band called "The Young CEOs" and a bicycle team. He has even compiled his own educational materials to use for tutoring kids after school. He is aiming to break the cross-generational cycle of dependency and lack of competitiveness evident in his hometown. Step by step, he is realizing a plan to bolster the town via education.

On the Friday night before some important school exams, the library/office of the Taitung Educational Development Association is bustling: a dozen or so ninth graders stream in, bringing with them the fried chicken and milk tea they bought on the way there. The youths are participating in an alternative afterschool program sponsored by the Ministry of Education, which aims to raise the scores of junior high students on the Basic Competence Test.

A student named Ah-Qiang is in no hurry to eat. Instead, he picks up the guitar at his side and begins diligently to strum. "Long, long ago, you left me to soar far away.... The outside world was wonderful, and I felt helpless there..." "The Outside World"-a song that Chyi Chin made famous years ago-accurately describes the longing that 15-year-old youths have for the outside world, and singing provides a release for Ah-Qiang's boundless, youthful energy.