Overviewof our work in Taiwan
The Family International has been active in volunteer efforts in Taiwan since 1980. Our goal of sharing God’s love, comfort and joy with the beautiful people of Formosa (Taiwan), is realized through a number of projects, ranging from Bible classes, to hosting seminars, retreats, and workshops on a variety of current topics.
Volunteers host youth programmes and youth clubs, and offer counseling in juvenile detention centers and prisons, as well as assisting the disadvantaged through providing aid to native villages in East Taiwan. We have been active in relief efforts, such as in the aftermath of the 921 quake in Nantou, Central Taiwan in 1999, and during the floods that affected Taiwan’s capital as a result of Typhoon Nari in 2000.
Project Highlights
Taipei youth outreach
| Our volunteers are active in youth outreach––helping to counsel Taiwanese youth and instil positive, unselfish, and caring ideals. We regularly meet and counsel young people, helping them to face the challenges of modern society. Young people who participate in the programme undergo noticeable improvement in their quality of life. Read more about this project for personal comments from participants.
Stories & articles
|
Photo album
Indigenous communities
| Family International volunteers regularly visit villages in the Nan-ao and Hua-lien areas to assist the needy in these aboriginal communities, as well as a nearby orphanage and nursing home. During these visits we also distribute food, clothes, and educational books.
Bible classes
| Volunteers of the Family International in Taiwan host weekly Bible classes. Our students come from all walks of life, and have responded with enthusiasm to the different training and counselling received. We also give classes to Taiwanese children, teaching them English through Bible stories.
Hospital visits
| Accomplished Family entertainers volunteer their time on a monthly basis in a variety of hospitals. Members visit patients, as well as perform in the hospital lobbies and the children’s wards to bring cheer--entertaining the children with magic tricks, and balloon sculpting, as well as distributing toys and other gifts.
Institutes for the mentally challenged
| Working with local charities, volunteers from the Family International often visit centres for the mentally challenged. Children who had withdrawn into their own worlds make remarkable progress with the Family’s volunteers, and they have made important personal breakthroughs in a number of cases. Staff members and parents alike benefit from the encouragement that we bring, and the happy smiles that greet us when we arrive are all the payment we could desire.
Juvenile detention centres
| Volunteers in Taiwan have participated in rehabilitation efforts for troubled youth in detention centres and prisons in Taipei, Hsinchu, and Yuanlin counties since 1994. Family International volunteers offer Bible-based counselling to troubled youth, as well as English classes using motivational Christian material, and have organized benefit performances. We have received recognition for our work from the Taipei Juvenile Detention Centre, as well as from the Taiwan After-Care Association.
Senior citizen homes
| Each Christmas, volunteers for the Family International bring holiday cheer to the elderly in a number of institutions in Taiwan. These dear people, who for different reasons are not able to be with their families and friends during the holiday season, need to be shown that they are remembered and loved. Our children bring them the cheer and happiness that help provide the friendship and support they seek.
School performances
| Volunteers for the Family International perform schools around Taiwan for special programmes and events such as Children’s Day, Easter, Christmas, and at various summer camps, bringing the message of God’s love and care to school children.
Mountainous areas projects
| In cooperation with our local government, members transport large amounts of donated goods on an ongoing basis to villages in T’aichung County, including clothing, food, and computers. Earthquakes and landslides had previously destroyed the roads leading to these villages, isolating them from the rest of Taiwan, and this project has helped to bring hope to these people.