Founder

Chen, Chen-Yin

Human Rights Education System Builder · Social Work Scholar · Independent Field Researcher (Pronouns: She/Her)

Chen, Chen-Yin is the founder of SURVIVAL EDUCATION® and the originator and system builder of Original Habitat™. She is dedicated to building a human-rights-based education system rooted in natural habitats.

Her professional journey began in 2006 with post-tsunami reconstruction work in India. She subsequently worked in case management within cognitive-educational programs for perpetrators of sexual violence, while also engaging in gender-focused action research in social work. Through these experiences, her work gradually evolved from post-disaster field practice toward institutional development and public policy advocacy.

Since 2012, as one of the core representatives within a civil society coalition, she has participated in advancing the domestic incorporation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in Taiwan. She served as the principal drafter of the amendment explanatory notes for the Child and Youth Sexual Exploitation Prevention Act, contributing to the integration of CRC principles into the institutional framework of child protection. In parallel, she has long been engaged in human-rights-centered practice within early childhood education systems, promoting the implementation of CRC principles in educational settings.

Her research and practice encompass policy reform, children’s rights, gender equality, and disaster risk reduction. Extending human-rights education into aquatic and wilderness environments, her work aligns with the CRC, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the World Health Organization’s LIVE LIFE and INSPIRE strategies, transforming fear-based, control-oriented education into an approach centered on understanding, prevention, and coexistence as a pathway toward sustainable development.

As a solo long-distance field researcher, she places herself in highly uncertain natural environments to observe how psychological states shift in response to environmental change. Her research examines self-care, psychological adjustment, and the development of internal support capacities in situations where immediate external support is unavailable, addressing how individuals remain grounded amid uncertainty and instability.

She completed the Camino de Santiago in Spain (approximately 1,400 kilometers) in 2023 and, in 2024, completed the Pacific Crest Trail in the United States end-to-end (official trail length: 2,650 miles). She then extended the journey into Canada, completing a longitudinal field study of more than seven months that integrated survival literacy, mental health, and life education into human-rights-based practice. She believes that external stability emerges from inner resilience, and she continues to cultivate spaces for dialogue that respect choice and recognize human diversity.