Do You A Flavor.
Since 2014, Do You A Flavor has focused on urban poverty issues like street homelessness. We realized that homelessness and poverty are not purely caused by individual factors, and are also difficult to rely solely on individual efforts to improve their situation and reintegrate into social groups.
At the same time, we realize that people in poverty are constantly neglected, stigmatized, and excluded because of society’s misunderstanding. However, we believe that equality, understanding, and connectivity can develop the social culture of inclusiveness and thus create a space for non-exclusion.
Therefore, through direct service and social advocacy education, we want to loosen the structural constraints by engaging the community and poor individuals to make a difference together, making society more livable for each individual.
How to help people reintegrate into society
Accompanying people to self-reliance through providing resources and services, and creating an inclusive society through public advocacy and education.
Direct Services
From the streets to rental housing, accompanying the homeless to practice stabilizing their footing in society.
Provision of supplies and diversified services
Regularly, we conduct nighttime visits to the vicinity of Taipei Main Station and 228 Memorial Park, the main gathering places for people experiencing homelessness in Taipei, and distribute supplies to them every two weeks. Additionally, we provide occasional outreach visits to offer companionship and resource connectivity services, including medical appointments accompany and welfare consultations to link them with available community resources.
“Fixfixjogood”(重修舊好) serves as a daytime facility where the homeless can shower and rest. It also provides social work services and opens it to the public for meal reservations and raising awareness about poverty-related issues.
Group Activities and Skills Training
▪︎ “Fixfixjogood” organizes at least three themed group activities each year, covering various topics from personal care to community engagement. These weekly group activities aim to facilitate inner healing, foster community connection, and rebuild their motivation toward daily life. There is also a focus on empowering people experiencing homelessness by producing recycled goods, which gradually practice their work skills and increase their income potential.
▪︎ Our Matchmaking Work Team for the Homeless holds monthly themed gatherings and training sessions, where team members will be supported to practice communication, improve skills related to cleaning and organizing, and meet the job requirements.
Part-time Matchmaking, Cleaning for Disadvantaged Households
▪︎ To provide employment opportunities and cultivate working skills for homeless individuals, we initiated the casual labor matching work service and organized a work team, which will help to receive work commissioning for cleaning jobs from disadvantaged households through social welfare centers and distribute to the team members. And we will accompany team members to organize accumulated items and clean the homes of needy individuals.
▪︎ Moreover, we utilize online platforms to crowdfund and match odd-job opportunities. Through these platforms, we have engaged in diverse work types, such as extras in performances, office cleaning, and manual packaging.
Rental Empowerment
We provide stable living spaces and counseling services to individuals experiencing homelessness, enabling them to build self-sufficiency while connecting them with compassionate landlords who can offer ongoing rental support services.
One of our initiatives is collaborating with businesses to establish Transitional Housing for male individuals experiencing homelessness. Based on the housing, we also provide services for their employment, savings, and life skills training, which aims to assist individuals in identifying life goals and reintegrating into independent living.
Our “Juguang Social Housing Program,” supports self-reliant individuals who face difficulties in renting housing, and social workers will provide resource connections and community engagement services for these tenants.
Issue Advocacy
Constructing a friendly bridge to let the society discover, understand and action
Initiate social conversations through activities
Through activities, we would like to create a platform for the public to have real interactions and conversation with the homeless, and result in enhancing public understanding of the poor issue.
Activities included the Stone Soup programme which invites the public to cook together and share meals with the homeless monthly, and the annual Year-end-banquet for the homeless, which we call on the public to donate ingredients and participate in the voluntary actions.
Education promotion
Convert poor issues into an easily recognizable and understandable format, furthermore promoted through diverse ways.
For example, we design lesson plans and collaborate with teachers to educate students about social risks and methods of actions. We also conduct multiple issue-oriented seminars, engage with schools and businesses. Moreover, we invite homeless individuals to participate in market stalls, where we design interactive and engaging activities to introduce these topics to the public.
Independent study and advocating law amendment
We engage with coalition organizations to exchange experiences of poverty, understand the mechanisms of institutional exclusion, study international practices and Taiwan’s challenges in supporting those in poverty, and collectively advocate for legislative reform and public awareness. Our ongoing goal is to develop a society that does not perpetuate institutional exclusion.
Self advocate of homeless, forming NGO alliance
We establish channels of advocacy through exhibitions, seminars, on-site visit, human library to allow the communications between service providers, experiencers and the public.
We have also jointly established the Alliance for Learning from the Poor’s Action and collaborated with multiple NGOs to organize the large scale advocacy event, ‘Poor People’s Taipei’.
