But Vasse and Lin persist, and in less than a year since it was formed, ATOAP now has around 400 members, so although progress remains slow, the future looks promising.
Away from the farm, Vasse and Lin keep themselves busy with voluntary work at the Youth Care Foundation (普仁青年關懷基金會), a charity dedicated to helping children from disadvantaged families get a better education.
Youth Care, established by a group of university students in 1982, works with schools and teachers to identify children whose domestic circumstances are affecting their studies, Lin said.
Contributors to the foundation “adopt” these children, donating NT$1,500 (junior high school) or NT$2,500 (high school) per month to help them with education expenses, which are surprisingly high even in rural areas.
The money is paid into each child’s bank account (teachers keep the account chops after a few bad experiences where parents stole the money for alcohol) and the children can withdraw cash whenever they need it. The children then have to write reports charting their progress, which their financial guardians can access via the foundation’s Web site.
The foundation also has a facilitation program designed to help kids with talent in areas other than academia, Vasse said, such as music, crafts or sport. In July 2006 one school, Hong Jen Junior High School in Nantou County, received a grant that enabled it to take part in and win an international tug-of-war tournament in Japan, for which the participating students received a sports college scholarship.
The couple admits that visiting some of the almost 1,000 children who benefit from the scheme brings home the “shocking” reality of life for many poor families in Taiwan and “makes one despair that things can be so bad in a rich country,” but with determined people like Vasse and Lin working on their behalf, the future for these kids looks just a little bit brighter.
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