NTU held the NTU iNGO Academy signing ceremony & orientation today to officially launch the NTU iNGO Academy. On behalf of NTU, the President Prof. Wen-Chang Chen, the Executive Vice President Prof. Shih-Torng Ding, and the Vice President for International Affairs Prof. Hsiao-Wei Yuan signed the LoIs with 9 non-governmental organizations to cultivate sustainability talents together, witnessed by the Director General of the Ministry of Education’s Youth Development Administration Dr. Hsuch-Yu Chen, and the Deputy Director-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affair’s Department of NGO International Affairs Ms. Elvie Wu.
By working with Impact Hub Taipei for this year’s iNGO Academy, we successfully matched 15 students from 5 countries and 9 colleges with internships across many different iNGOs. Some of these iNGOs are international organizations with local branches in Taiwan, such as Good Neighbors Taiwan and the Jane Goodall Institute Taiwan, while others started in Taiwan and serve overseas, including the Noordhoff Craniofacial Foundation, Step30 International Ministries, the Garden of Hope Foundation, and the Mustard Seed Mission. Furthermore, there are those organizations focused on connecting Taiwan with international society, including CAPRI, One-Forty, and the Taiwan Digital Diplomacy Association. Through their journey in the courses and internship, we look forward to students finding their own path to participating in internationalization and sustainable development.
Apart from learning professional knowledge and skills for NGO workers in class through English, meanwhile the students will also have to intern at one of those NGOs for 16 weeks. We hope that through this combination of theory and practice, students will be equipped with the professional skills to connect with global networks and solve contemporary international issues when they work with NGOs in the future.