Embrace Taiwan 2.0

I'm 31 years old. I have been in Taiwan for almost 2 years. Before I came to Taiwan I worked at Abu Dhabi for a couple of years. The work condition was good and my employer was kind but the pay was low compared to Taiwan. Before I came to this service centre to ask for support, I was working at a factory. At the same time, I was asked to take care of an elder person and clean two houses. One has 5 floors and one has 6 floors. I had to do all the cleaning by myself. Everyday I woke up at 4am to clean those houses before I went to the factory. Once during winter, I was asked to was 3 cars by myself. It was cold and it was hard for me. I continued to bear with it for almost a year until I could not take it anymore and resigned. Currently, I'm still looking for a job. I wish to go back to Indonesia one day and find work there. But it's hard to find a good-paying job in Indonesia so for the time being, I will continue to search for work in Taiwan and save money before I g

I am 35 years old. I'm from Surabaya but I used to work in Palembang before I came to Taiwan. While I was working, I got into an accident and had to be hospitalised. I was still receiving my salary because my employer felt that I was still needed. But receiving salary blindly like that didn't sit well with me so I resigned from that job. I later worked at an export company after getting a recommendation by a friend but was retrenched after a year and a half due to the downsizing activities of the company. After a couple of years, my wife and I went to Taiwan to find work in hopes that there are better opportunities in Taiwan. However, things did not turn out as I had hoped. I had to go through so many bad experiences. I had to pay almost 80000NTD just to come to Taiwan to get a job. Before I came to Taiwan, I was told that I will be working as an excavator repairman. But my job is different from the job scope. I was asked to fix a total of 25 units of excavators all

I am 29 years old. I came to Taiwan to earn money so that I can help my parents and to achieve my goal of opening up a business. I want to have the financial freedom to be able to buy things I want to buy. I used to study Hotel and Restaurant Management at a university in the Philippines. But the job market in the Philippines is very competitive so I had to search for work outside the country. The first time I came to Taiwan was in 2011. Since then, I have moved back and forth between Taiwan and the Philippines three times because of work. In 2017, I worked at a factory but my employer asked me to do other things that was not in the job description. I had to work as a gardener, janitor and carpenter. My employer was also not the most pleasant person to work with. He is always angry and always shouting. On top of that, the salary was less than I expected because I had to pay a lot of fees. I could not take it anymore so I decided to resign and terminate my contract with the bro

I'm 27 years old. I came to Taiwan in 2014 and the main reason is because I want to save money to open up a business. I also want to save money to have a family of my own. I chose Taiwan because I feel the procedure to come and work here was easy and understandable. At first my parents was not very pleased with my decision. I completely understand because no parents would want their child to become a migrant worker. They would definitely be worried about my well-being. But because our financial situation was not the best, I had to find ways to financially support myself and be more independent. Since around one month ago, I ended up in this service centre because the factory I was working in downsized and I was laid off. The news of my retrenchment was very hard and frustrating to receive. But I believe that everything is for the best and God has a better plan for me. I think it's important to quickly pick yourself up after you fall because it will be bad for you if

I'm 35 years old, married with two kids, my first-born is 15 years old and the second one is 4 years old. It has been a little more than one year since I've seen them face-to-face. It has been hard but all I can do is to be strong. The reason I came to Taiwan to find work was because I feel there are more opportunities here to improve my family's financial situation. My father died when I was small and all my other siblings are not yet financially stable. Of course if I work in Malaysia, I wouldn't have to learn a whole new language as our languages are similar. But I expected the salary in Taiwan to be higher compared to Indonesia and Malaysia and I figured that even if I come to Taiwan, I will be working on a job that is more labour intensive and doesn't require special skills where I would need to learn Mandarin on a higher level. The first time I came to Taiwan was in 2008 where I worked at a factory for 5 months but I quit because I wasn't paid

I'm 30 years old, married with two young children. My wife and I came to Taiwan to find work while our two children are being taken care of by their grandmother. The first time I came to Taiwan was in 2009 where I worked at a factory for 3 years. The work was good and it met my expectations. So after 3 years, I went back to Indonesia. However, when I came back to Taiwan for the second time a few years ago, my previous job before I came to this service centre didn't go so well. I was working at a detergent company. An accident happened which caused me to suffer from chemical substances. I continued to work for one month until I couldn't bear the pain anymore. I told my employer that I wanted to resign. He asked me to continue working by offering to pay for my medical expenses. However, those turned out to be empty promises as in the end, not only did he not pay for my medical expenses but he also didn't pay my salary. So I resigned from the job and came to this s

Before I worked at this service centre, I was learning to become a priest. But I decided that the path to become a priest was not for me. My family needed me so I needed to work to support them. Until now, I continue to be the bread winner of my family. I married a Taiwanese and I have been in Taiwan for 22 years and have worked in this service centre for 16 years. Before this, I didn't know how the migrant workers live. Only after I became a migrant worker myself do I understand what it's like for them. Even with the best conditions, it is still hard. You are far away from family. You get homesick all the time. You have to work hard to earn money and send the money back home. Some suffer from abuse by employers and supervisors. I want to go back to the Philippines and be with my mother. But I have work here in Taiwan so I cannot do that. But I always try to go back whenever I can. I'm grateful that Philippines is not that far from Taiwan and the airfare is not that e

My name is Valentino Taneo, aged 41 years old and I am from Nusa Tenggara Timur, Indonesia. I have been in Taiwan for almost 8 years and I have been working at this service centre for almost 6 years. I first came to Taiwan as a missionary under the congregation Religion of the Virgin Mary.   Here in this service centre, mainly my job is to help Indonesian migrant workers who are in distress. These migrant workers come from all over Taiwan. Some of them have been involved in human trafficking, accidents at work, sexual harassment, salary not being paid etc.  Working here requires me to have an open mind and an open heart. We have to try to understand and accept their situations. I don't see myself as being someone who is above them. We have to have mutual respect and try our best to learn from each other. I think it's important to reach out to them even though they come from different backgrounds and education levels.  I would like to see all the migrant workers

I have been in Taiwan since June 2016. I studied Mandarin full-time for one year and then started to work part-time at Hsinchu Migrants and Immigrants Service Centre (HMISC) in July 2017. After working for one year, I am hired as full-time staff in July 2018. I came to Taiwan to become a missionary. I wanted to try and experience many things while extending my skills. Initially, my father was afraid to send me off because sometimes becoming a missionary can be a dangerous job but after a lot of persuading, he finally trusts me. Currently my family and friends are very supportive of my work. Working in this service centre can sometimes be a challenging job. New people come here to ask for support all the time. I have to have a lot of patience to get to know them and understand their situation. I always try my best to balance between having to be strict with them and to be kind and compassionate towards them. What keeps me going is definitely prayers and the support from my fami