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Ma promoting dropout appeal on personal Web site
CHARITABLE:
The Taipei mayor is using his own Web site to support a campaign to generate funds to help get children back into education
By Mo Yan-chih
STAFF REPORTER
Monday, Jul 10, 2006, Page 2
As Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) official Web site celebrated its first anniversary yesterday, he invited the public to join a fundraising campaign to help the country's growing number of dropouts.
The "Everyone is a philanthropist -- You click, I serve and he donates" campaign is the first online charity event held on a personal Web site.
The campaign is seeking to raise NT$9 million (US$3 million) for the Good Shepherd Sister Social Welfare Services dropout program by means of visitors clicking on an event icon.
"This is my personal Web site that is run neither by the KMT nor by the Taipei City Government ... Hopefully it can act as a platform to send out love to the disadvantaged by means of this campaign," Ma said yesterday during a press conference at KMT headquarters.
Visitors
The Web site, which was set up to boost the chairman's support rate during the KMT chairmanship election last year, has so far attracted more than 2.8 million visitors and 220,000 messages.
When deciding which charity campaign to support, Web site organizer Wang Chi-hong (王智弘) said the site referred to a list of social welfare organizations published by the Ministry of Interior.
It sifted out those which were affiliated with enterprises and temples, or which had held fundraising events recently.
The Good Shepherd Sister Social Welfare Services, which has been working to provide shelter and educational services to abused women and children since 1994, said that it will use the money raised during the campaign to subsidize its dropout program which seeks to help children back into education.
Helping hand
"Tracing dropouts and sending them back to school is easy. What's difficult is to help those kids rediscover sufficient motivation to stay in school ... They just need a little help from society to return to the right path," Sister Therese Tang, executive director of the organization said yesterday.
Allen Wang (王堯倫), chairman of the Farcent Enterprise Co Ltd, one of the companies participating in the scheme, expressed his support for the campaign, and encouraged the public to visit the Web site and click on the event icon.
Ma later announced that he would donate NT$20,000 to the organization.
The event runs through August 23.
For more information, visit the Web site at www. ma19.net
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