Maryknoll Shelter in Taiwan Offers Refuge to Migrant Workers

Maryknoll Father Joyalito Tajonera and his parish community extend hospitality as they advocate for labor rights.

By Paul Jeffrey

Cindy Sevilla came to Taiwan in 2023 to work as a caregiver for an elderly woman. At least, that’s what her recruiter told her. She left her two children with her mother-in-law in the Philippines and followed her husband, who had moved to Taiwan a few months earlier to work in a factory. Both planned to send money home for the children’s education and a small house of their own.

But there was no elderly woman. No job as a caretaker. Instead, Sevilla’s new employer put her to work in a small family business manufacturing rice cakes. She worked from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. six days a week, cooking the family’s dinner after working in their factory. On Sundays, she had to clean the family’s house. Once a month, she got a day off when she could visit her husband, who lived across the city in a factory dormitory.

After a long year, Sevilla says, she was too tired to continue. She told her employer she wanted to find a different job. Within hours, she got a phone call from her broker, the agent who had arranged her employment. The broker told her to pack her bags. She took Sevilla to another house, saying she would arrange her flight back to the Philippines. Sevilla, who was pressured to sign papers she didn’t understand, was given far less severance pay than she expected.

“The broker told me that there was a dorm fee and a broker fee,” Sevilla says, “until I finally just gave up and signed.” She continues, “I decided I needed to get out and get some help.”

For a migrant worker trapped in a country where they don’t speak the language, getting help can be difficult.

“The broker told me I couldn’t leave,” Sevilla says. “But when I messaged my husband on the phone, he told me to go to church and talk with Father Joy.”

Father “Joy” is Maryknoll Father Joyalito Tajonera, who founded a shelter at the Tanzi Catholic Church in Taichung for migrants in need of help.

Cindy Sevilla and other residents prepare a meal in the Ugnayan shelter in Taichung, Taiwan. The shelter hosts migrant workers who are forced to leave their jobs because of abuse, are unexpectedly terminated, or who have other legal, labor or health problems. (Paul Jeffrey/Taiwan)

While her case was under investigation, Sevilla moved into the parish shelter. After a couple of weeks, she was called to a hearing. Father Tajonera accompanied her. Government officials determined that she had been illegally employed. They found that she had been paid the caregiver’s minimum salary of $600 a month rather than the factory worker’s minimum of $825 a month plus overtime. Sevilla accepted a $6,500 settlement, which she sent to her mother-in-law in the Philippines. The Ministry of Labor also told Sevilla she was not obligated to leave the country and was free to look for another job.

“Father Joy told me that if I presented the evidence, I would win the case against my employer, because how they had treated me was illegal,” Sevilla says. “If I hadn’t found Father Joy, I’d probably be back in the Philippines now. But he taught me that as an OFW (overseas Filipino worker) I need to be strong. He taught me that I need to know my rights, whether I’m here or in another country.”

Father Tajonera says the shelter is meant to provide a home to those without one.

“We want migrant workers who are facing difficulties in Taiwan to have a home, a place to rest and to eat, to not worry about all the other issues that they’re facing,” he says. “The Maryknoll shelter becomes a home away from home for them, a safe haven.”

The shelter, named Ugnayan — a Filipino word for connection or relationship — offers refuge to a wide range of migrant workers. Women who become pregnant and consequently lose their jobs find a temporary home there. In Taiwan, they receive better medical care for themselves and their babies than in the Philippines, and the babies are doted on at the shelter.

Some guests are people who simply fell through the cracks. Last year, the shelter cared for an elderly German man who had grown senile while living in Taiwan but had no family. Immigration officials appealed to Father Tajonera for help. Caring for the man became a project for all the shelter residents.

Others come to Ugnayan for health reasons. Waynelyn Subia survived cervical cancer several years ago, but the cancer reappeared in her lungs in 2023 while she was working as a caregiver. When her employer grew suspicious of her frequent medical appointments, she confessed her condition — and was promptly fired. Father Tajonera welcomed Subia, who is from the Philippines, to the shelter so she could continue receiving care from the excellent Taiwanese health system free of charge.

“Because I’m sick, I can’t send money home to support my three children, but my husband is an OFW in Australia, so we’re surviving,” she says. “The other people in the shelter take care of me. I feel special here.”

Because Subia’s chemotherapy treatments have left her without hair, she wears a hat most of the time. Father Tajonera, who shaves his head, jokes with Subia.

“He keeps telling me that bald is beautiful,” she says.

There are other shelters for migrant workers in Taiwan, but Father Tajonera says that Ugnayan is different.

“They live in a community setting, so they’re not alone. Everybody helps one another,” he says. “People can come anytime without too many questions. Someone says, ‘I lost my job. I’m sick. I don’t have a home.’ And we say, ‘Welcome.’ Other issues we’ll deal with later on. This is the only shelter that’s run like a Catholic Worker soup kitchen, where everybody can get in line and have their bread and soup. No questions asked,” Father Tajonera says.

Because the Maryknoll Society provides financial support for the shelter, Father Tajonera doesn’t have to ask the Taiwanese government for funding, as most other migrant shelters do.

“If I applied for funding, I’d have to follow certain rules, and probably half the migrants wouldn’t qualify to be sheltered here,” the priest says. “They’d have to go back to their employer or broker, and that would defeat the whole purpose. If you’re a victim of abuse, you shouldn’t have to go back to your abuser for help.”

He notes, “A lot of the migrant workers walk away from their job because it’s dirty, it’s dangerous, it’s difficult, and they’re overworked and underpaid. Their salaries or overtime are not paid correctly. So after months and years of suffering, they finally decide they’ve had enough.” But it can take months or even a year for the workers’ cases to be settled, he explains. “The shelter provides a haven where they can stay until that is all resolved, where they feel safe, where they don’t have to worry about where to sleep and what to eat.”

The shelter reflects the missioner’s exposure to the Catholic Worker in New York City, where he lived for several years before entering the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers.

“The spirit of Dorothy Day is alive and well here,” Father Tajonera says. “There are no managers and bosses here. Everybody helps. Everybody becomes a mentor of the newly arrived, and they work together, they learn from one another. The migrants themselves become their own advocates because they learn from their experience and they share that experience with others.”

Marivic Arevalo, a migrant worker from the Philippines, holds another woman’s baby. Pregnant migrant workers, who often lose housing when they lose employment, are welcomed at the shelter. (Paul Jeffrey/Taiwan)

“Every time I pray, I give thanks for all the people who help us, the people who support Maryknoll and the Catholic Church. It’s not cheap to rent the building, buy the food, pay the bills and help those who are sick. But Maryknoll and its supporters have been very generous,” Father Tajonera says.

What that financial support provides, he says, is more than just a place to stay for migrant workers in crisis. It’s empowerment.

“We emphasize the dignity of the person, the dignity of labor. All the time I speak about the rights of workers, the rights of laborers, the rights of the migrants, the rights of women, and the rights of migrant workers in Taiwan under both local law and international law,” Father Tajonera says.

“One of the happiest moments for us is when someone comes in who is broken, but by the time they leave they have recovered a sense of wholeness. The dignity of the person is back,” he adds.

“Too often, migrants come in thinking that something is wrong with them. That’s why they were abused or cheated. It was somehow their fault,” he says. “Yet by the time they leave, they realize the truth. And they are whole again. They rediscover the joy of life.”

Featured image: Father Tajonera meets with a group of factory workers in the Ugnayan shelter. Father Tajonera, who is well-known for his labor advocacy, counsels workers on their rights and responsibilities as foreign workers in Taiwan. (Paul Jeffrey/Taiwan)