When Chang Su-jen (張素真) started offering foster care 10 years ago, she had trouble looking after the children and even burst into tears in front of a rebellious fifth-grade boy.
The challenge of fostering troubled or abused kids, however, did not deter Chang. Thanks to her persistence and help from other foster parents and social workers from the charity World Vision Taiwan, Chang has fostered seven children and teenagers over the past 10 years.
“It’s been a rewarding experience to give these kids love and a temporary harbor where they can heal their wounds before starting a new life,” she said during a press conference at Taipei City Hall yesterday.
Chang is one of the 126 families in Taipei that have provided foster care to 169 children and teenagers. With more children in need of foster care service, however, the Taipei City Government and the charity group are urging families to extend their love to those in need.
Kuo Hsiu-ling (郭秀齡), senior director of the Marketing and Resources Department at World Vision Taiwan, said the charity group and Taipei City’s Social Welfare Department have provided foster care to more than 833 children since 1993 in Taipei alone, but the demand for foster families is growing as the number of dysfunctional families and cases of domestic violence increase.
World Vision Taiwan data shows that most of the children placed in foster care were abused or neglected by their biological parents.
Huang Ching-kao (黃清高), deputy commissioner of the social welfare department, called on more families or single residents to join family fosterage.
For more information about the foster care program, call World Vision Taiwan at 02-2585-1195 ext. 14 or e-mail pr@worldvision.org.tw.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
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
RSS