Taiwanese Aboriginal Christians create model project for post-disaster recovery

["Daphne Martin_Gnanadason" <Daphne.Martin_Gnanadason@wcrc.ch>]

World Communion of Reformed Churches  
News Feature 
26 April 2011
 
Taiwanese Aboriginal Christians create model project for
post-disaster recovery 
 
Aboriginal members of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (PCT)
are survivors. Their communities have been hit by natural
disasters and eroded by economic and social pressures. Yet in the
eastern region of the country that is home to most of the
country’s 15 Aboriginal groups, there are signs of
reconstruction and recovery.
 
At the Morakot Taitung Reconstruction and Caring Centre in the
coastal city of Taitung, survivors of Typhoon Morakot that struck
the region in August 2009 are being offered trauma counselling
and job re-training with the support of PCT. The majority of the
population served by the centre belongs to aboriginal groups
including the Paiwan, Amis, Bunun and Puyuma. With financial
support from PCT, local business people and the government, the
centre’s team of social workers and educators offers assistance
to the whole community – Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian, and
Christian. 
 
In the wake of the earthquake and nuclear disaster in Japan, PCT
is reaching out to Japanese churches with an invitation to study
the Morakot Centre as  a model for their role in the
reconstruction of devastated villages. In Japan, as in Taiwan,
Christians are a small minority of the population. PCT general
secretary, Andrew Chang, has invited 20 clergy from Japanese
congregations affected by the disasters to visit the centre.
During his recent trip to Japan, Chang learned that pastors were
looking for ideas of how churches could help rebuild their
communities. 
 
"I invited them to visit the Morakot Centre," Chang says. "This
could be a model for them."
 
The centre’s director, Iling Ruvaniyaw, a Christian and
hereditary Paiwan leader, says the centre was created to help
rebuild shattered lives through job skills training and to assist
in reconstructing the community’s infrastructure. This is
particularly challenging in Taitung, she explains, as many of the
area’s aboriginal people were already struggling for economic and
social survival. The typhoon further marginalized them and
compounded their challenges.
 
The Morakot Centre’s social welfare programme offers support to
the elderly who lost their families in the disaster, trauma
counselling for students, homework assistance and free meals for
children. Job training includes certification in the food and
beverage industry, making driftwood furniture and traditional
crafts, and professional marketing advice for local artisans.
Interest in the reconstruction work is so high that the centre
also coordinates tour groups and provides bed and breakfast
services.
 
The Morakot Centre will receive church and government funding
for two more years. Plans are for the centre to be self-funding
by then and continue serving the area’s disadvantaged and
marginalized aboriginal groups. For now though, the focus is on
ensuring a sustainable future for people in the community.
 
“Our goal,” says Ruvaniyaw, “is for our people to become
self-sufficient so that if the centre closes, they will still
have a future.”  
 
-- Kristine Greenaway, head of communication for the World
Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC), is in Taiwan at the
invitation of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, a WCRC member
church. This is the first of a series of stories on PCT’s
ministries with the country’s 15 Aboriginal groups. 
 
The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan is a small but significant
force in Taiwanese society. Its members make up just under 1% of
the population that is primarily Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian, or
secular. Known for its human rights, social service and mission,
the church is closely connected to the country’s aboriginal
peoples. Eleven of its 23 presbyteries represent Indigenous
congregation; the remaining 12 are Han or Hakka. 
 
WCRC was created in June 2010 through a merger of the World
Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) and the Reformed Ecumenical
Council (REC). Its 230 member churches representing 80 million
Christians are active worldwide in initiatives supporting
economic, climate and gender justice, mission, and cooperation
among Christians of different traditions. 
 
Media Contacts: 
Kristine Greenaway
Office of Communications
Email: kgr@wcrc.ch
tel: +41 (0)22 791 62 43;
cell phone: +41 (0)79 508 20 43 
fax: +41 (0)22 791 65 05
www.wcrc.ch ( http://www.wcrc.ch/ )