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Group lends a hand to children

Children and representatives of the New Frontier Foundation mark the beginning of the `Value the Children of Taiwan Project' at a press conference yesterday. PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES

The New Frontier Foundation and various other civic groups announced the beginning of project to help over 700 disadvantaged children throughout the nation yesterday.

At a press conference in Taipei, the program called the "Value the Children of Taiwan Project," seeks to address the various educational problems facing underprivileged children, foundation executive director and Democratic Progress Party (DPP) deputy Secretary-General Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) said. He added that all children have the right to adequate care and education.

Despite Taiwan's decreasing birth rate, the number of children from disadvantaged families is increasing, Lee said.

"When you see reports in the news about these children, you can't help but feel sad, regardless of whether or not these are children being raised by single parents, foreign spouses or grandparents. All children born in Taiwan are the future of Taiwan," Lee said.

According to Lee, the main goal of the project is to build contacts with 100 associations and businesses and encourage them to make donations.

Organizing and fundraising for the program began in June this year, in part driven by a documentary called A-tsu's Son. The film, directed by Wu Nien-jen (吳念真) focusing on grandparent-run families. The tragic case of a foreign bride throwing her child off a building also motivated the project's representatives, they said.

In order to achieve the project's goals of building academic guidance, financial support, family counseling, day care and the planning of a summer camp for needy children, the foundation decided to connect with various social groups.

Since then, the foundation has partnered up with NGOs such as the Eden Social Welfare Foundation, Peng-wan Ru Foundation and the Taiwan Kiwanis of Children Foundation and has raised over NT$7 million. It has also trained 500 volunteers to assist over 700 children from all over the country. The initiative runs until October.

One school that has benefited from the project so far is Fu Yuan Elementary School of Hualien County, where about 27 percent of the student body hail from single-parent or grandparent-run families.

The students from single-parent or "grand-family" homes consistently perform poorly in school, often due to their poor grasp of Mandarin or ridicule from fellow students about their low socioeconomic status, Fu Yuan school principal Lin Bi-shya (林碧霞) said.

Gaining hope from the progress the project's volunteers have made with these children, Lin said she hopes the plan will become a long-term project, and urged the government allocate resources towards to that end.

Although foundation representatives said that the foundation has no plans to continue the project past October, it hopes that the planning and funding put into this summer's work will help the partner NGOs sustain the project in the schools.
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