Taiwanese education kit for migrant workers wins Japan design award

Taipei, Oct. 20 (CNA) Taiwanese nonprofit organization One-Forty, which is devoted to migrant workers' rights, won a Good Design Gold Award Wednesday for its education kit, which was praised for its contribution to facilitating networking among migrant workers as well as 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 the locals, according to the organization.

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 Good Design Gold award, according to the release issued by One-Forty.

Good Design Award said the kit contributes to networking among migrant workers as well as between them and Taiwanese. "It is also excellent that the project not only provides practical knowhow in consideration of migrants' cultural and religious backgrounds but also covers their later lives with various interviews and reports," according to the award website.

Written in Indonesian, it is also the first "migrant-oriented" Chinese-learning material, which not only includes useful conversations such as seeing a doctor, buying groceries, and expressing feelings, but also introductions to Taiwanese culture, the organization said.

One-Forty took to Facebook on Wednesday to express their surprise and thanks for the recognition, saying they are 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 5-to-10-year long-term action," the organization said. Funded mainly through donations, it pledged to provide more than 1,000 kits every year around Taiwan, 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 since grown to over 60,000 migrant workers engaged in remote learning, according to the organization's website.