Taiwan has been standing shoulder to shoulder to prevent the spread of COVID-19. When the pandemic has been slowing down gradually, variant virus, OMICRON, shows up suddenly and scares people under the darkness of the terrible epidemic internationally. Taiwanese government announced boarder blocking policy to ban the invasion of the new variant virus, which interrupts the steady pandemic. Due to the coming Chinese New Year, the overseas families arranged to come back and hope to accompany with the family on this special holiday season. However, when tons of the oversea people swarmed into Taiwan, the risk of the spread of new type virus would enhance. In addition, the negligence of the epidemic prevention details cause the virus enter into the communities, and the local confirmed cases soar continuously. The authority has adopted more restricted prevention procedure to warn the public of the seriousness to care more about the prevention details and place emphasis on every single group in this island, decreasing the possibility of the outbreak of the corona virus.
The fishermen live in the remote area: therefore, they are lack of the resources. Rerum Novarum service team never stop helping them through promoting prevention procedure to the migrants and the resources donation since the COVID-19 has broken out. Even though the pandemic has slowed down in Taiwan, we still care much about the real needs of the migrants by contributing the necessaries and spreading the information to protect them from being infectious. In this new wave of the OMICRON virus, Rerum Novarum keeps raising living goods from the public, some enterprises focusing on the Rerum Novarum service team reach out to us swiftly. They purchased 10,000 masks for our team and give it to the fishermen to ensure that they have enough materials to stay away from the epidemic.
When Rerum Novarum service team received the goods, we sent it to the fishermen from Northern Taiwan as soon as possible and remind them to avoid to be in the crowded place during Chinese New Year. If there are necessary to go out, people have to remember the virus prevention details, including wearing masks, washing their hands, using alcohol for disinfection, and shortening the time of staying with the crowd. They can change the way of visiting the families and friends from the hometown to online video call. Decreasing the times of meeting in person can protect themselves and the friends.
The fishermen living beside the port showed their gratitude to the public and told our team that they knew it is hard time in Taiwan, and they would stay home, rest around the port with their families and friends, wear masks when getting touch with others to lower the infectious risk. With the experience from last year and going through the Level 3 alert for COVID-19, they know how to prevent the epidemic. Rerum Novarum workers told the fishermen to get the three injection within the rules. When feeling uncomfortable, the fishermen must tell the brokers or employees to pass the hard time safely.
In the long run, the fishermen is a group who has been ignored. In 2017, Rerum Novarum reach these people. We not only concern about their lives but help them solve the problem about regulation, salary payment, job accident, employers changing, human trafficking, and so on. We went to 21 ports and solve the practical problems of the fishermen. Due to the language barrier, we see many fishermen do not know how to ask for help and bear the difficult working environment instead. They are working day and night with the thin salary. We are looking forward to your help and hope your can be the protector for the foreign migrants. Press “I want to donate.” or call (02)2397-1933 #122. Thanks for your attention!