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Documentary probes `grandfamilies'

Film director Wu Nien-jen, left, and Fubon Financial Holding Co co-chief executive officer Daniel Tsai, discuss the social problems faced by children being raised by their grandparents at the premiere of Wu's documentary A-Tsu's Son in Taipei yesterday. PHOTO:CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES

In meeting A-hung(阿宏), a 6-year-old boy from Ho-tong in Chiufen, one notices two things: his energetic running about and steady stream of prattle in Taiwanese, marked by the occasional swear word.

He and his great-grandmother, Chou Yu-hsia (周玉霞), are the subjects of a documentary released yesterday by Business Weekly (商業週刊) and the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families (CCF, (家扶基金會)).

The documentary, A-Tsu's Son (阿祖的兒子),by director Wu Nien-jen (吳念真), aims to increase awareness in Taiwan about "grandparent families" and their problems.

Grandparent families, or grand-families, refer to households in which children are primarily provided for and cared for by their grandparents.

The documentary examines A-hung and his situation, complete with interviews with his grandmother, teacher, uncles and family friends.

A-hung, who was abandoned by his mother and father when he was eight months old, is an active boy. He is far behind the other students in school, without even the basics of the Chinese phonetic alphabet or the ability to count from one to ten. Language is a problem as well, because A-hung cannot really speak or understand Mandarin Chinese.

"Problems such as these are typical of children in grandparent families," CCF social worker Wang Yu-chin (王育蓁) said yesterday.

Because such families tend to have a lower socio-economic status and educational level, many children in grandfamilies have academic problems and trouble maintaining attention, she said.

The CCF says many of these children suffer psychological problems stemming from a sense of abandonment and rejection by their parents.

According to CCF figures, 1,275, or 8.91 percent, of the 14,305 households that it serviced last year were grandparent families. They found a greater number of such families in southern Taiwan, with 135 in Kaohsiung County and 191 in Nantou.

According to the CCF, many factors are responsible for grandfamilies. Parents may be divorced, working far away, imprisoned, underage or may have abandoned their children.

The documentary will be shown on nine television channels tomorrow and on Sunday, including TTV and CTS, and will include Chinese subtitles.

The magazine and foundation hope the public will be inspired to donate funds to send 3,400 children from single-parent and grandfamily households to a summer camp run by the CCF this July through August.

For information about making a donation, call the CCF at 04-2206-1234.
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