The Rerum Novarum Center in Taipei held a graduation ceremony to recognise the migrant workers who had spent a year learning the Chinese language, an important skill to help them advance in their work and life in Taiwan.

Most of the migrant workers are Vietnamese and a few Indonesians who work in factories, while some are care workers. They devoted their after-hours, weekends, and holidays not to rest, but to learn and improve themselves, travelling from their workplaces in Taoyuan, Guishan, Linkou, Shulin, Tucheng, Wugu, Xinzhuang, Sanchong, Zhonghe, and Taipei to attend the Chinese language classes held in the borrowed classrooms of the Fu Jen Faculty of Theology of St Robert Bellarmine in New Taipei City.

The classes were facilitated by Mr Lu and his students who volunteered to teach the migrant workers introductory, basic, and advanced Chinese language lessons. They gave the migrant workers the support and accompaniment needed to encourage them to keep on learning. One of the volunteer teachers is Ms Yulan, who has rendered more than 720 hours in four years as a volunteer teacher.

She first came to Taiwan as a student and by chance came in contact with Rerum Novarum Center, where she saw the plight of migrants coming to Taiwan for work. At the graduation ceremony held on 24 January, she commended the willingness of the migrant workers to spend their precious free time learning, and assured them that their spirit of perseverance will be rewarded in the end.

In addition to the certificate of learning hours, which the migrant workers received after accomplishing the required number of hours and passing the final exams, they also received a certificate of completion, which opens them to greater employment opportunities.

Because of the pandemic, the migrant worker-students in Taoyuan were unable to attend the graduation, but their joy in finishing the programme was shared by everyone. At the end of the ceremony, the chorus of Chinese, Indian, and Vietnamese New Year songs felt like a blessing to the migrant workers in Taoyuan and to everyone working hard in all corners of Taiwan. [Rerum Novarum Center]