Taiwanese nonprofit organization One-Forty, which is devoted to migrant workers’ rights, on Wednesday won a Good Design Gold Award for its education kit, which was praised for its contribution to facilitating networking among migrant workers and with Taiwanese.
The “Book & Host Project for Migrants” education kit is a free package of physical and online learning materials provided to migrant workers to help them adjust to Taiwan in a timely manner, and initiate quality interactions with locals, the organization said.
The kit, which has been given to more than 3,000 families in Taiwan since its inception in 2019, was chosen from among 5,800 designs around the world as one of the 20 winners of the Japan-based Good Design Gold Award, a news release by One-Forty says.
Aside from promoting networking between migrant workers and with Taiwanese, the kit is also “excellent, as it “not only provides practical knowhow in consideration of migrants’ cultural and religious backgrounds, but also covers their later lives with various interviews and reports,” the Good Design Gold Award Web site says.
Written in Indonesian, it is also the first “migrant-oriented” Chinese-learning material, which not only includes samples of useful conversations, such as seeing a doctor, buying groceries and expressing feelings, but also introductions to Taiwanese culture, the organization said.
One-Forty wrote on Facebook that it was surprised and thankful for the recognition.
It added that it was happy to have the opportunity to encourage people to think about how to get along with people with different racial, ethnic and cultural backgrounds.
“The project is not a short-lived attempt, but a five to 10-year, long-term action,” it said.
Funded mainly through donations, it pledged to provide more than 1,000 kits every year across the nation, including rural areas and offshore islands.
Founded in 2015, One-Forty has dedicated itself to the empowerment of migrant workers in Taiwan through education. It also holds physical cultural events to connect migrant workers with each other and with Taiwanese. Its online community has grown to more than 60,000 migrant workers engaged in remote learning, the organization’s Web site says.
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