National Chengchi University (NCCU) and the Chinese Children's Home and Shelter Association, a local nonprofit organization that helps foster children, are teaming up to send volunteers to inject a bit of life and learning into two rural orphanages in the south, university and association officials announced yesterday.
Beginning next month, 20 local and foreign NCCU students will venture deep into sweltering farmland in Pingtung and Kaohsiung counties to stay in orphanages throughout the summer.
Their mission: to expose foster children to foreign cultures, and teach them English and soccer.
Titled the "2007 Summer for a Better World," the volunteer program is the brainchild of association officials and complements the university's tradition of community service by students, said association secretary-general Hung Chin-fang (
"These foster kids have very few opportunities and resources to learn English and understand the outside world," Hung said. "So, we're bringing the outside world to them."
NCCU freshman Elio Rash, a business student from diplomatic ally Belize, is among a handful of international students who will "sacrifice" his summer vacation to interact with orphans, organizers said.
"Do not think that our diplomatic allies just secure resources from Taiwan," a university press release said. "They're eager to interact and understand `Formosa' through community service here, too."
For Daniel Park, an NCCU student from South Korea, helping foster kids is the perfect way to give back to his adopted community. The business student lost his father when he was 12 years old, and has a personal mission of helping other parentless children, NCCU official Connie Chang (
"I know what these kids are going through," Rash said yesterday at a press conference touting the program. "When I was younger, I faced [similar circumstances]."
The students and association officials will stay for three weeks at a Pingtung orphanage sheltering 100 Aboriginal children next month before moving to a smaller Kaohsiung orphanage in August, Hung said.
"The students won't live in hotels or experience better conditions than those of the children," NCCU president Wu Se-hwa (
The summer program is the first step in fostering a community service initiative the association hopes will grow to the point where foreign students will come to Taiwan primarily to volunteer at foster homes, Hung said.
For NCCU, the program is part of its "Think Globally, Act Locally" community service program, which aims to channel students' skills in bettering the community, said Chen Chao-ming (陳超明), the dean of the College of Foreign Languages and Literatures.
The university hopes to spur other tertiary education institutions to encourage their students to volunteer in the community by leading by example, Chen said.
"Learning doesn't happen just in the classroom," he said.
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
Taiwan will now have four additional national holidays after the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment today, which also made Labor Day a national holiday for all sectors. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their majority in the Legislative Yuan to pass the amendment to the Act on Implementing Memorial Days and State Holidays (紀念日及節日實施辦法), which the parties jointly proposed, in its third and final reading today. The legislature passed the bill to amend the act, which is currently enforced administratively, raising it to the legal level. The new legislation recognizes Confucius’ birthday on Sept. 28, the
RSS