Can you imagine a life without the convenience of buying a can of Coca Cola or a box of your favorite cookies at a family mart just around the corner -- at any given time?
Or imagine a life without the luxury of taking a warm bath at home, dining out in nice restaurants and watching newly-released movies every weekend night?
While the thought of giving up such a comfortable lifestyle might be hard to imagine for some, those individuals who take part in the International Cooperation and Development Fund's (ICDF, 國際合作發展基金會) overseas development programs, the pleasures and conveniences of materialist lifestyles are nothing when compare to the happiness they experience while serving in ICDF missions abroad.
In short, as Judy Wang (王秀珠), a current member of ICDF's medical team to the Republic of Malawi, put it this way: "My time in the ICDF's overseas mission has profoundly enriched my soul."
ICDF, a branch of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is the single body in charge of Taiwan's cooperative overseas development programs.
"The mission of the ICDF is to strengthen international cooperation and foreign relations by sending well-trained Taiwanese professionals to help other nations. These nations are usually in some stage of the developing process. Our professionals help to promote these countries' economic development, social progress and the welfare of the people," said the ICDF's Secretary General, Yang Tzu-pao (
Yang, who recounted to the Taipei Times the history of Taiwan's overseas assistance projects, said that Taiwan had sent its first agricultural missions to Asia in the late 1950s when Taiwan was itself still a developing country. These were followed by a batch of agricultural technical missions to Africa in 1961 to help expand and modernize fruit and vegetable production.
"Then, as Taiwan's economic strength started growing during the 1980s," said Yang, "Taiwan expanded its cooperative international development programs, increased its number of overseas missions and also furthered the various types of assistance projects."
"Taiwan was poor back in the 1950s and received assistance from others," he added. "Through the ICDF's overseas missions, Taiwan is giving back to the international community what it can to help others.
According to Yang, the ICDF currently has 38 missions serving abroad in various parts of the world. Those include missions in Africa -- in Burkina Faso, Chad, Gambia, Liberia, Malawi, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal and Swaziland.
In Asia, the ICDF has missions stationed in Fiji, Indonesia, the Marshall Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Thailand. In the Caribbean, there are missions in Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, St. Christopher and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Missions to Central America include those stationed in Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and El Salvador. In South America there are missions in Ecuador and Paraguay. There are also missions in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
"These overseas missions are categorized into various assistance projects: technical, medical, agricultural, investment, humanitarian, educational and training projects," Yang told the Taipei Times.
The tasks of various technical missions include teaching skills to the underprivileged and developing and implementing projects such as growing crops on what was originally barren lands, building dams and laying irrigation, just to name a few.
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