Last Wednesday (9/28), a training class from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs visited GOH Linkou Service Center. The members were eight government and congressional officials from six countries in Central and South America, including friendly countries such as Guatemala and Paraguay. During their training courses, they have gained a preliminary understanding of Taiwan’s current status, and GOH is honored to share with the guests our first-hand experience in ‘female empowerment.’

Under the leadership of Director Yu-hua LEE and supervisor Hsiao-Chi Wu, the guests visited a sample house of the Women’s Self-support House to learn how we help women and children who have been abused survive this toughest mile; Not only providing social housing to violence victims so they don’t have to worry about the accommodation problem, in addition, there are community children care centers such as Garden of Sunflowers and Sunflower canteen, which provide a safe and warm space for activities; Besides, there are Well-Being Healing space and children’s sensory rhythm mediation center, because domestic violence can cause not only physical injury, but also psychological trauma needs professional social workers and counselors to help mediate.

Next, we took the guests to the Well-Being Café, which provides women with a ‘workplace preparation’ model to enhance their workplace coping capacity, and to encourage women to rebuild their interaction with the community and others. Director Li also explained GOH’s progress in helping abused women; the transformation from shelters to social housing, combining housing and empowerment services. Not only enhances women’s self-reliance, but also breaks the cycle of violence completely. Also, it was GOH’s honor to invite Chih-Chi HSU, director of New Taipei City’s Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Prevention Center and Syueh-Fei LIAO, deputy director of Linkou’s Housing and Urban Regeneration Center to share their experiences, so the guests could have a more comprehensive idea of how Taiwan helped abused women to reintegrate into their communities.

The guests affirmed the Garden of Hope Foundation’s efforts, and appreciated the service model of Taiwan to help women escape from violence and become economically independent. They also shared with us the current situation in Central and South America. They mentioned that as a result of the worsening of the pandemic, violence against women is getting worse everywhere. For example, the number of cases of domestic violence in Argentina has increased tenfold since before the pandemic, which is indeed alarming. The guest from Mexico shared her own upbringing and affirmed the positive feedback on women’s empowerment. We thanked MPFA for the arrangement which gives us the opportunity to exchange views with distinguished guests from Central and South America. We hope there will be more exchanges in the future, so that we can work together to change the disadvantageous situation of women around the world!