>> thank you for tuning in. i'll come to a brand-new edition of the taiwan outlook, the program that resents the different faces and different stories about taiwan. the sunshine social welfare foundation is a leading ngo in taiwan that looks after the

welfare and benefits of burn victims and survivors. on today's program, we are delighted to have our guests, and international affairs -- list at the sunshine welfare foundation to discuss the kinds of programs and services available. welcome to the program. >> thank you. >> can we start off the program by asking you a little bit about the background of the sunshine social welfare foundation? >> the sunshine social welfare foundation was established in 1981 by a group of people who felt that the needs of burn survivors and people with facial disfigurement were not addressed. it all started with a book written by a burn survivor called people who shun the sunshine. in this took, the lady expressed difficulties going back to society after her injury and their ejection seat

-- the rejection she faced not only in the workplace but in society. a group of people after reading this book were very touched. they decided to start a movement to raise funds to establish this foundation because they found these people with facial disfigurement had been left out. they were not considered disabled enough, but they were not considered normal enough either. so they were not receiving adequate welfare services and their rights were discriminated against. at is how the foundation started and the movement was ordinary people who came together and donated. it is a very grassroots. >> the sunshine foundation started international exchanges and cooperative programs back in 2006.

what were the motivations and reasons the sunshine foundation wants to be engaged internationally? >> you can look at it into different phases. we started going abroad and dissenting papers. the motivation was just to share our knowledge. after 25 years, we ate human related experience the area of burns. we thought it would be good to share with others. in these conferences, you act with a lot of your peers. as we begin to take part in these conferences annually, we started to make people and they started to get to know us and they got to know about our services. that is when the offers charted to come in and people asked if you could share your expertise with us.

in 2010, that's when we decided in our strategic planning process that international cooperation would be the next focus in our work. international cooperation became a little more to lack of. >> were there people in taiwan saying we have enough of the problems with burn victims and survivors. why don't you engage the community and help others and spend the resources here in taiwan. where there ever real voices like those? lex yes. maybe some. the way we look at it is our

presence was very well established in 30 years and our services will continue. they continue to grow. last year or two years ago, we reached over 2000 clients served in taiwan only. this local service aspect is going to continue. it will not be impacted. the international part, what we thought of is we have limited resources in terms of money and people because we can't take our local staff and put them abroad to do services. we don't want to take the place of the people on the field in other countries. we don't want to replace them, we want to empower them. what we decided to do was do international cooperation in terms of a knowledge transfer or technical assistance which is less intensive in terms of --

>> the kinds of resources you need? >> yes. it is more efficient. >> over the years, the sunshine foundation has been engaged internationally. what were some of the major achievements the foundation has been able to maintain in the last few years? >> internationally, we have been able to maintain a presence in the international conference circuit and i think over the years, because we have been going annually, more and more people know about us. our presence there is established. in taiwan, we also organize international conferences. on the topic of psychosocial issues of people with facial disfigurement. it is often overlooked. but as we focus on the psychological and social rehabilitation, it is going to

give more exposure to this issue. in 2011, we reached a milestone and had our first international cooperation project. >> international engagement -- what were some of the difficulties that you have experienced in last few years in terms of funding and entering the cooperation with the right counterpart, is that a problem? >> the first issue is how to become international. when you are a local organization and you have local staff, your funding is all local and your outlook is local and the way you look at the issue of burns is focused on taiwan, how do you go and understand burns internationally?

what's the situation in other countries? this process is a learning process and learning how to define your strategy. it's one thing to say a want to cooperate with international organization, what kind of impact do you want to achieve. we don't want to replace people, we want to empower them. we share our knowledge and so when you train the burn specialist in one country, this person can help more people. another aspect is internally how to get people aboard because they will say we have a lot of work here. sometimes you have different voices. >> the pie is so big. if you could take it up a certain part of it, other parts

may not. is it easy to find a counterpart agency? there are similar types of ngos in parts of southeast asia or china or north america or europe. >> there is a lot of nonprofit organizations right now in different countries the on burns. unfortunately, it's an issue that has been overlooked compared to transmitted diseases like malaria or hiv. in these countries, many small organizations have been set up to address the needs of burn survivors. we have tried to get to know them and see if our philosophies match. >> i think the most

important thing is to educate people and be careful in terms of doing anything that could lead to another fire. how is the educational program or arm of the services? is it being strengthened or highlighted in terms of the sunshine foundation programs customer >> in taiwan or internationally? >> it started actually with an incident in bangkok. a small child was burned at that time. he fell in hot water and the foundation got doctors and people together and they decided we should have a slogan to enhance prevention. ever since that time, we have been involved.

we emphasize correct first aid immediately. when you are burned and if you are in water immediately, you will reduce the damage done and reduce the consequences that will happen afterwards. >> do you often go to schools like elementary or middle school? >> yes. we have no grams in schools and elementary schools and in communities. our programs have a two-pronged approach. we first prep -- we first focus on preventing burns, like first aid and how to avoid being burned. that is common knowledge. but we have another aspect that emphasizes the social aspect. we have activities where we get people to wear pressure garments.

they can experience what burn survivors go through. they are learning how to respect burn survivors. >> we need to take our first break. when we come back, we will continue this conversation. she's in international affairs specialist at the sunshine social welfare foundation.

>> welcome back to this second half of the program. we are going continue this fascinating conversation with the current international affairs specialist at the sunshine social welfare foundation. let's talk about the program

with a counterpart agency in nicaragua. that was established in october of 2011. tell us about that project. >> this cooperation project was a long time in the making because we first got to know the organization, it's an association for burned children in nicaragua. we met them in 2007 and immediately we felt there was an affinity not only because we had similar services but a similar philosophy. they provide free services to burned children in nicaragua. we have been touch and they said we want to learn from you. it was a very concrete suggestion to learn pressure garment production. they were already doing pressure garments themselves. in terms of the technique, they

needed improvement and they found our pressure garments were very good. they asked us if we wanted to cooperate with them. we were in the process of planning our strategic vision and international cooperation was part of it. everything matched and we decided we would start with a one-week program of training for seamstresses, not just in nicaragua and in neighboring countries. >> how often do you have the exchange of personnel? >> we go there in 2011 for the first time. we're in the process of a three- year program and we are going again this year. our specialists, including

therapists and seamstress who will go there and train with other people. >> another international program is in india. tell us about that program. >> in nicaragua, we are focusing on a very specific technique, which is making pressure garments. it is a one-week course. pin india, i would say it is a level higher. this organization works with women victims of domestic violence. many women who are victims of domestic violence are burned. in the process, they found these women after leaving the hospital, they had nowhere to go. they decided after meeting us and seeing our work and they decided to establish their own rehabilitation center. it is a home where these women

can go and stay depending on the need and there they can receive physical rehabilitation and psychological counseling. they are training and accepting themselves and going back into society. it's not just one specific technique. >> it's a whole safety network. in the program, where we talk about the kinds of services you have, what the sunshine is trying to do is provide services to empower local people. how is that being implemented in these international programs that you have? backs in nicaragua, what we saw is we have seen seamstresses being empowered because in these

countries, guatemala, the dominican republic, the seamstress is responsible for making the garments. they are not necessarily part of the burn rehab team. it may be a bit off, but because of this program, their relationship with the burn team has become closer and these women probably did not receive any formal training. with this course, they feel more confident making these garments. at the individual level, we have seen they have been empowered. >> and they have become more confident? in terms of protecting the rights of others and other things. >> most important is they become

part of the burn rehab team because for example, in our foundation, the seamstress works closely with the therapist to make garments. sometimes, they just get the order from the doctor to make this garment and they don't really know, they have more knowledge and they have become empowered. because of the change in the seamstress, the hold production processes changed. they have seen the difference as far as making the impact on the children. >> how about in india? in terms of empowering people, how will these women who are victims of domestic violence and possibly burned, how do they rehab into the process of being

reintegrated into their families and society? >> the organization we are working with, they have a lot of experience in domestic violence. how to empower these women, they know how to do it. they focus on the strength of these women. they'd don't see them as victims. now, they are dealing with urns, so there are a lot of different issues, like the issue of appearance. how to deal with that. their staff is not necessarily totally knowledgeable in this area. what they are doing now is we are giving them this knowledge to deal with the goal issues and emotional issues that are beyond domestic violence. >> in addition to the two international projects that you

have, you must be planning on some others. can you share what are some of the priorities that go into your valuation process or strategizing process of identifying or entering into another cooperation project in the future. what would you consider priority factors. have they done a specialized training program? will these things be important in terms of a future strategizing process? >> what we look at verses the partner, who is the partner and what to they do and how do they do it. we are a nonprofit organization. to be frank, burns is a very costly process to treat.

we have allowed a lot of burn survivors to receive physical rehabilitation and we have done it on a philanthropic basis. when we find partners abroad, we hope they have the same philosophy as us. we don't want to share our techniques and knowledge and have this be used -- >> in a commercial way question are >> exactly. we want to make sure they share the same philosophy as us. second, we want our partners to be very motivated. we have limited resource in terms of money, people and time. we want to make sure the partner is motivated to learn. that way we feel like it is an investment. thirdly, we hope the partner has some basic skills or resources that can support this project.

they probably have some techniques or knowledge to learn, but we will have staff, do they have good work ethic, these are things we look at. >> what's important for a lot of ngo is the issue of sustainability. the concern over burn victims and survivors is something very costly. it would require a lot of specialized skills and money. how do you maintain the level of interest of someone who can share the same philosophy as the sunshine foundation and at the same time both organizations can work together to maintain the goal of sustaining the ongoing project. >> locally, in taiwan, for the

international projects, we have been very lucky because we have received support from the ministry of foreign affairs. our project in nicaragua was fully funded and the project in india was partially funded. one of the challenges we are facing is how to find other resources because you cannot just rely on one single resource. you have to diversify your funding. our international projects, how to make them known not just in taiwan, but abroad. >> in terms of domestic support, has there been an increasing awareness on the part of the corporate sector that corporations may be looking into the sunshine foundation doing good things? we should be considering them as a future organization for the

nations? >> for international projects, not yet. >> taiwan is a trade dependent economy. a lot of businesses are engaged internationally in the commercial sense and they do not yet realized the importance of the projects that sunshine may be doing? >> i think this is a process because a few years back, not many local ngos were willing to go international. now we have a lot of organizations doing international work. taiwan companies, they are very focused on local philanthropy, but maybe they will also follow this process and start saying we can't do it internationally. >> we need to take another break on the program. we will be right back.

>> welcome back to our program. we will continue our conversation with the international affairs specialist at the sunshine social welfare foundation here in taiwan. let's talk about the domestic programs and services that you have for people who suffer from burn accidents and how do they deal with the issue of rehabilitation and reintegrate themselves into society? >> our foundation provides comprehensive services to burn survivors.+ we focus on not just the physical aspect, but the psychological and social aspect. one thing is we have a rehabilitation center for burn

survivors. after hospital discharge, they're referred to a strictly by the hospital, sometimes they come by themselves and they can stay at our halfway house and do rehabilitation at our psychiatric center. >> in terms of the kind of issues of earned victims or survivors, right after the trauma is over, what are some of the more pressing concerns in terms of dealing with rehabilitation? was it more physical or more psychological? fax it is a mix of both. the physical aspect is very important. they are in pain and sometimes if they have not started rehabilitation early enough, they have scar contract sure, so they have lost physical function. a can you their hand or they cannot walk.

this will affect their ability to live independently. this also affects their emotions. if you are not able to take care of yourself, your emotions are going to be low. if it is an accident, there is the trauma of this, of reliving that experience. they have to deal with a changed apparance. >> that's not going to be easy. >> the scars will never go away. they might fade a little bit but then you have to learn to live and accept your scars area is a long process, soit certaint

as to how quickly this person can heal. if they don't react in such a positive reinforcing way, they could have very different consequences. hell that education focus is able to include family and friends of burn victims. >> in the process of rehabilitation, they don't just work with her and survivors. they also work with the family. the family also has to deal with this. as caregivers, they have to take care of burn survivors. sometimes you have physical and emotional exhaustion. >> you have to be very patient. >> yes.