An International Resources Center (IRC) under the International Association for Volunteer Effort (IAVE) was established in Taipei yesterday, marking the first international non-governmental organization (NGO) to open such a center in Taiwan.
The IAVE-IRC -- the third office of its kind that the IAVE has established worldwide -- will focus on expanding Internet networks for international volunteer efforts, building an IAVE library, establishing a publication center and sponsoring seminars and training camps on volunteering and youth services, said Liz Burns, IAVE president and chief administrator.
Burns, who traveled to Taiwan to attend the opening of the center, and Li-chiun Cheng (鄭麗君), chairwoman of the National Youth Commission (NYC), presided over a ceremony held at the NYC headquarters to kick off the IAVE-IRC's operations.
Keen expectations
Addressing the opening ceremony, Burns expressed her keen expectations that the center will help beef up partnerships between international volunteers and their Taiwanese counterparts and will obtain enthusiastic support from Taiwanese society.
Cheng said that the opening of the center represents a physical link-up between Taiwan's volunteers and their global counterparts, and a vision that more people in Taiwan will join the "volunteer family" so that they can carry out their responsibilities as members of the civilized world.
Chiang Kuo-chiang (
Fresh starting point
Wendy Stratton, the first executive director of the IAVE-IRC, expressed hope that Taiwan will be a base and a fresh starting point for her to further promote international volunteerism and youth services worldwide.
Stratton, a retired geography teacher from Canada, has been involved in international volunteer services for more than 20 years.
President Chen Shui-bian (
During that visit, Burns also presided over a ceremony marking the establishment of the IAVE Taiwan.
Burns, a teacher-turned-volunteer from Scotland, was elected director of the Volunteer Development Scotland in 1983. She was then chosen as chief administrator for the IAVE in 2001.
Founded in 1970, the IAVE is the only international organization with the mission of promoting, celebrating and strengthening volunteerism worldwide. Working closely with the UN Volunteers, the group was instrumental in getting the UN General Assembly to declare 2001 the International Year of Volunteers.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater