Taiwan Church News 3856Edition 19~25 Jan, 2026 Weekly Topical PCT and Mustard Seed Mission Cooperate to Enable Disaster Prevention in Indigenous Communities Reported by Dalul from Hualien In order to strengthen the tribal awareness of disaster prevention and rehab capacity after catastrophic emergency, the PCT Church and Society Committee and the Mustard Seed Mission jointly held a seminar, entitled as “From Self-Help to Work-Together: Buliblosan Tribe’s Rehabilitation with the Government” on January14 at Atomo Cultural and Health Station of Guang-fu Township in Hualien County. Both Mr Hu Jar-Ker, general secretary of the Disaster Prevention and First-Aid Association (DPFAA)of Taitung County and Mr Lee Wu Dao-yi, chairman of DPFAA, are both invited to instruct the Atomo tribal youth and its patrol team with their expertise in order to build a disaster-resilient community. As the first speaker of the seminar, Mr Hu recalled the terrible scenarios when Morak Typhoon hit Bulibloson tribe more than ten years ago: 98 houses of the tribe were instantly destroyed within a blink. “Facing the dramatic change of the so-called ‘Our home town in the Pacific’, veteran officers and soldiers in the tribe decided to stand up,” Mr Hu recalled, “independent disaster prevention is to protect yourself and the management of emergency prioritize four elements: people, land material and time.” In the management of people, the first-aid team should master of the tribal population, learn the detailed demographical data of young and middle-aged people, and classify the population into different functions: command, guard, rescue, evacuation, guidance, administration and others; from the prospect of land, emergency management shall have an in-depth understanding of the history of the local terrains and draws a geographic map to mark the dangerous potential area; from the perspective of material management, it shall check all the vans, jeeps and trucks in the tribe, and list these vehicles for the use of disaster prevention; from the perspective of time management, people shall learn that every second of early warning counts before the disaster occurs. It is very remarkable that Bulibloson tribe has set up a special “spiritual care group” in its HQ office. Realizing the importance of a shelter with dignity as a true safe haven, Mr Hu held a prayer meeting with five local churches to accommodate families, singles, men and women respectively. The Bulibloson tribe is also the first community in Taitung to introduce aerial drones for disaster prevention through monitoring the water level and riverbed siltation. In addition, with the government’s financial support, hi-tech induction lamp had been installed in the tribe, using visible red lights to deliver emergency message instead of the traditional warning equipments which were easy to be washed away. In addition, Mr Hu emphasized the importance of deep-rooted training and church mobilization for disaster prevention. “Because most ethnic people gathered on Sunday service, it is convenient to use the service time to implement a ten-minutes’ education of disaster prevention. Further, the indigenous community shall root deep in such disaster-prevention education among kindergartens and primary/secondary schools, so that the children could be naturally learn and know how to deal with kinds of natural disaster.” Mr Lee Wu Dao-yi continued to share, “after his discharge from the navy, he initially wish to run his family’s farm business, but the dream dashed away after his home was destroyed by the Morak Typhoon.” He stressed the key to post-disaster rehab is launching a civil self-help association. “Facing the public sectors, there must be a civil group daring to speak out,“he remarked. “At that difficult time, it’s due to many professionals’s firm stance on a project of local rehab, which decisively changes the government’s plan of building temporary relay house into a permanent house with reinforced concrete structure.” He reminded that the rehab plan should be supervised by tribal residents to avoid cultural mismatch, and people should honestly share and deal kinds of challenges during the rehab proceedings: including compensation distribution caused by family rift, chaotic resource allocation, and even children’s psychological trauma when the sounds of rain are heard and etc. In the session of Q&A, the youth of the Atomo tribal village shared their worry, “many tribal youth are working outside and it is difficult to recruit enough people to set up a patrol team.” Mr Hu responded that the Bulibloson tribe had established a strong youth group and forged a consensus of “loving home and not leaving tribes” through the education of schools from kindergartens upward. “Although you may have to work, the solution is a spirit of sacrifice and dedication. The service of patrol team can be rotated in turns every week. Don’t worry if there is no one to step out, the only problem is that if you want to do it.” In response to why he continued to devote himself to disaster prevention, Mr Hu replied frankly, “tell me where is safe in Taiwan? The Presidential Palace Building may also be dangerous.” He said “climate change is unpredictable, and only self-help disaster prevention can protect people before government resources arrive.” He called on the indigenous to be vigilant and carry on to monitor the coast and the land amid weather forecasts in order to implement effective preventive actions against disaster. Mr Wu Bing-han, deputy director of the Mustard Seed Mission, concluded that the core task of community disaster prevention is a ministry of self-help mission. “The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan and the Mustard Seed Mission will continue to campaign disaster prevention in the hometowns of the indigenous tribes, ” Mr Wu pledged. He encouraged the audience at site, “even if only few people could be touched and then returned back to tribal communities to recruit like-minded people, let’s start with ten people as a resilient network and strong support for the indigenous tribes to face the ongoing extreme climate disasters!” Translated by Peter Wolfe |