By YT Yang | Program Manager
Between June 25th, 2025 and October 16th, Forward Alliance conducted 49 training lessons and trained 1,497 people. This brings to a total of 468 training lessons and 17,307 trained civilians since December 2023. During this quarter, we have slowly shifted out main focus to private organizations. A powerful indicator of the program's success is the fact that several major private organizations have actively sought out follow-up training sessions this quartar. Furthermore, the continuous inter-organizational training platform has become a unique mechanism for deep-level team building.
To broaden our preparedness efforts and to establish a consistent pipeline of highly motivated civilian volunteers, this quarter saw the successful launch of the Community Ambassador Program. This new initiative is specifically designed to bring motivated, community-minded volunteers directly into our rigorous training framework. By empowering the volunteers with the necessary skills and tools, they will be able to significantly broaden the reach of our training capabilities across different communities.
On September 24th, a barrier lake near Guanfu, Hualian overflowed and flooded Guanfu. Although the floodwaters have receded from the village, the streets are still covered in a layer of mud and debris. People who lived in the vicinity were forced to relocate because the mud left behind can be as deep as 3 meters. Forward Alliance successfully mobilized civilian volunteers from all over Taiwan to join the effort of recovering Guanfu Junior High School. Aside from the volunteers that we had interacted with before, there are many more who simply showed up at the scene and were ready to help.
The extensive training of our civilian preparedness network culminated in a powerful display of community resilience during the recovery of Guangfu Junior High School in Hualian. Over the course of a single week, more than 2,000 volunteers, military personnel, and substitute service members from across the nation worked tirelessly, shovel by shovel, to transform the school grounds from deep mud and debris to a state ready for the students' return. This monumental effort was supported non-stop by dedicated healthcare professionals, including nurses, EMTs, and volunteer firefighters from various regional units, who provided immediate on-site medical care to dozens of injured responders daily. The collaborative success was built upon transparency and public-private cooperation: the seamless coordination of logistics, supply distribution, and heavy equipment allocation, which was continually optimized throughout the operation, demonstrated the unparalleled power of civilian unity when guided by effective processes.
The collective efforts of this quarter have confirmed that our community-based approach is the most effective path toward comprehensive, enduring disaster resilience.
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
