Attitudes toward people living with HIV/AIDS in Taiwan are still somewhat in the dark ages. It is not uncommon for people diagnosed with the disease to lose their job, be expelled from school or face rejection by their parents.
On Sunday, an auction of clothes and accessories provided by local stars, including James Wen’s (溫昇豪) pants and items donated by Novia Lin (林若亞) and Miranda Lu (路嘉怡), is being held to raise money for Harmony Home Association, Taiwan (台灣關愛之家協會), which provides housing for people who are HIV-positive.
Wen, who played a leading role in the television soap opera The Year of Happiness and Love (那一年的幸福時光), donated two pairs of jeans, one of which he wore in the show, while the other he bought in the US.
Photo: Taipei Times
Evan Chang (張安岱), who is a member of Exfuze Top7+ Taiwan, a volunteer association that stepped in to help Harmony Home raise funding, says that auctions of celebrity-owned items can be a big hit.
“An auction I did before with Jay Chou’s (周杰倫) shoes netted NT$2,570,000,” he told the Taipei Times.
Exfuze is organizing donation drives, parties and charity auctions to raise the NT$30 million (US$1 million) that Harmony Home needs to apply to become a foundation. If the association can achieve that status, it will be eligible to apply for more government subsidies.
Harmony Home was founded in 1986 by Nicole Yang (楊捷) after she invited an HIV-positive gay friend to live with her and her daughter. After being diagnosed with the disease, he was expelled from National Taiwan Normal University and kicked out of his family home.
Though the government provides health care for HIV patients, it doesn’t provide homes for those who have nowhere else to turn.
“We didn’t know anything about AIDS back then, but I had known him for a year, so if I was going to catch it from him, I would have already caught it,” Yang said. “After that, more and more people knew I was willing to take in HIV-positive homeless people. When my house filled up, I rented another place for them.”
In 2003, Yang began to take in children born with HIV, mainly due to an increase in the numbers of young women contracting HIV through intravenous drug use.
It hasn’t been easy. Because Harmony Home is an association and not a foundation, it can only apply for a limited government subsidies to cover the costs of running its care centers in Taiwan’s Wenshan and Xinyi districts and in Kaohsiung, Pingtung and Taichung.
Government grants cover about 5 percent of Harmony Home’s expenses, Yang said.
The auction will be held at an office loaned out for the event by CTX Special Risks Ltd CEO Dominic Ng (吳約男).
Note: The auction was originally scheduled for tomorrow and Sunday, but earlier today the organizers canceled tomorrow's event.
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