Narconon Yunlin: 2025 Growth, Recognition, and a Fifth Anniversary

 

Narconon Yunlin, located in the central-south part of western Taiwan, reached its fifth year of operation in 2025 and continued to extend its work across Taiwan. Executive Director Kally Lin and Deputy Executive Director Sheng-Ji Chen, known as Jimmy, led the center through a year of numerous visits from senior government officials and national media attention. Its primary focus, however, stayed on the individuals who complete the Narconon rehab program and return to their families.

Five Years of Helping People Reclaim Their Lives from Addiction

The center held a graduation ceremony in November to mark five years since it first opened. Fifty-five people attended, including parents of graduates, the graduates themselves, and family members of students currently on the program.

Recognition from Government and Civic Leaders

The center's work has drawn growing attention from those responsible for addressing Taiwan's drug problem. A delegation toured the facility in September, including officials from the Kaohsiung Narcotics Prevention Bureau, a City Councilor, the Chairman of the Juvenile Guardian Association, and the Chairman of the Yunlin Guardian Association, along with other government officials. The visit gave these leaders a firsthand look at how the Narconon program works.

 

The center remained active with civic institutions throughout the year. Kally Lin and Jimmy Chen attended the annual meeting of the Juvenile Probation and Care Association in January, and Kally Lin took part in an award ceremony held by the Probation Association of Taiwan that same month. She also attended the meeting ceremony of the Yunlin County Parents and Presidents Association, an organization the center had recently joined.

Expanding Drug Education

Drug education was where the center grew most in 2025. The year began in January with a lecture to 80 students at a high school in Hualien County. That same month, Narconon graduates joined Kally Lin at Taipei University's Department of Social Work to address students and teachers, while a staff member who had graduated from the program himself spoke about his recovery at National Chung Cheng University. In March, Kally Lin lectured to inmates at Yunlin Prison and then held a Zoom session in which two graduates described their lives after the program. More school lectures followed in April, and August brought an event organized by instructors and teachers from the Chiayi Off-Campus Association.

The year's largest audience came in September, when Kally Lin gave a drug education lecture to 1,400 students at the National Chiayi Girls' High School.

Activity continued through to December. In November, 52 students from National Chung Cheng University came to the center for a lecture from Kally Lin. In December, the President of the World Association for a Drug-Free Society, Taiwan Branch, brought 34 members of the association to learn about the program and its results.

Building New Referral Relationships

Some visitors came to refer others rather than to seek help themselves. A group of entrepreneurs visited in October to learn enough about the program to refer people to it, which reflects the trust the center has built locally. Earlier in the year, a journalism student from Yunlin Huwei University of Science and Technology interviewed staff and a current student, carrying the center's story to a younger audience.

 

National Television

China TV interviewed Jimmy Chen in April about the program and the center's work in the community. The interview placed Narconon Yunlin before a national audience, presented by someone who had overcome addiction himself.

Looking Ahead

From 80 high school students in Hualien to 1,400 in Chiayi, from a single journalism student to a national broadcast, and from individual government visitors to a full delegation of narcotics bureau officials, the center's reach has widened year by year. Five years in, Narconon Yunlin remains focused on the work that defines it: helping people leave addiction behind, rebuild their lives, and reunite with the families waiting for them.