You partied on it all summer long, now it's time go clean up the beach. Dr Jane Goodall will be in town tomorrow to help Taiwan clean up the shoreline at Liukuai north of Danshui as part of her Roots and Shoots network of community volunteers.
The Roots and Shoots program began when 16 students gathered with Dr Goodall on her front porch in Tanzania in 1991. The students were fascinated by animal behavior and concerned about the state of the environment. But their schools didn't cover these topics. The students wondered if they could further these interests through out-of-school activities.
PHOTO: AP
Their conversation ranged from how to help chimpanzees to how their actions might affect their communities. The 16 returned to their schools with a task: Find other interested young people and take action. And so the Roots and Shoots program was born.
Roots and Shoots groups undertake "service-learning" projects that promote care and concern for animals, the environment or the community. There are more than 6,000 groups ranging in size from two to 2,000 members registered in more than 87 countries.
Their mission is to foster respect and compassion for all living things, to promote understanding of all cultures and beliefs, and to inspire each individual to take action to make the world a better place for people, animals, and the environment.
And sometimes to clean up a beach. The local chapter of the International Jane Goodall Association will be picking up volunteers at the Hongshulin MRT station bright and early at 8:30am. Organizer Zhu Pei-wen (朱珮文) asked that no one be late, but said the bus may be making a second or third trip, depending on the number of volunteers. She also warned that the coastal winds at Danshui can be fierce and chilly and advised that everyone dress accordingly.
Following the clean-up, Dr. Goodall will give a talk on volunteering for the community at the lecture hall of Zhen Li University (真理大學活動中心演講廳). Box lunches will be made available.
Teachers, if you're interested in incorporating Roots and Shoots community-awareness programs into your class curriculum, there is information available on the Web, including lesson plans for all ages. Check out http://www.rootsandshoots.org/in-schools/default.asp for more information.
Performance notes:
WHAT: Beach Clean-up
WHERE: LiuKuai Beach. Meet for bus pick up at Honshulin MRT Station
WHEN: Tomorrow, Saturday, Dec. 4, at 8:30am. Clean-up will go until 4pm.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not