Many people donate to the poor or the needy from the comfort of their homes, but a few like Yang Wei-ling (
A China Airlines' (CAL) flight attendant, who doubled as a volunteer with Taipei's 119 Emergency Hotline, Yang figured out what she wanted to do with her life at the age of 22.
She quit her well-paid CAL job in 1989 and set up the Field Relief Agency, a nonprofit NGO devoted to humanitarian relief work overseas.
Since 1999, Yang has divided her time between traveling around Cambodia helping the poor and the needy there and raising money and collecting donated books in Taiwan.
Staying with orphans, the handicapped and the homeless in Cambodia over the past 10 years or so, Yang is now an expert on Cambodian affairs.
Yang said that the really strong people are not political leaders who turn countries into slaughterhouses but those who love and serve the poor and the needy.
Yang established an orphanage in Poipet, a poverty-stricken border town in northwestern Cambodia, in 1999. That was followed by a vocational training center in the same town in 2001 in an effort to provide homes for the homeless kids and help housewives without incomes learn some skills which can help earn them a living in a country that was bathed in bloodshed several decades ago.
Last month, five Taiwanese charitable organizations joined the FRA and offered humanitarian relief to the people of Poipet by sending representatives there.
The "Love of Taiwan" delegation, consisting of members of the FRA, the Taiwan Roots Medical Peace Corps (TRMPC), Compassion International, the Eden Social Welfare Foundation and the Noordhoff Craniofacial Foundation, arrived in Poipet on Sept. 25 to deliver humanitarian relief to the locals.
In two days, delegation members had offered free medical services to more than 700 people in Poipet.
The delegation brought with it some 600kg of medication and medical aid materials, including wheelchairs, crutches, walking aids and white sticks for the blind, as many people in Poipet are victims of landmines that were planted secretly there when Poipet was in a war zone.
Due to poverty and poor sanitation, many youths aged around 15 in Poipet weigh only 20kg to 30kg, while many men, due to decades of hard labor, suffer problems with their joints and most women have gynecological problems, according to TRMPC medical professionals.
In addition, a large number of Poipet residents suffer from vision problems. Some have suffered eye problems since their childhood, said an eye doctor with the TRMPC.
Yang managed to raise a total of US$120,000 to build a school, which offers junior- and senior-high education for youths over 12.
Knowing that Cambodian teachers tend to give closer academic attention to their students in paid after-school classes in order to make extra money, Yang decided to pay the teachers at the high school salaries twice or three times more than ordinary levels, hoping that they will focus their teaching on the new school.
Meanwhile, the FRA has also launched a campaign to have 500 bicycles donated to help children and youths in Poipet to go to school.
"Each bike means a boy or a girl can go to school," she added.
Believing that education is the best way to help people surmount poverty, Yang has continued to build schools in Cambodia.
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