“After the floods took my father’s life, all of a sudden I realized how fragile life is. I know I must learn to become independent, because [your] parents won’t be around to take care of you forever. They will leave you, sooner or later,” the daughter of a Morakot victim said yesterday.
Ya-tzu (雅慈) is the oldest of four children in her family. Her mother, now a single parent, supports her children and an elderly grandmother by selling stinky tofu in a small restaurant.
The family is one of many that have received help from the Child Welfare League Foundation’s reconstruction projects following Typhoon Morakot, which hit the southern part of the country in August last year.
PHOTO: WANG MIN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES
The foundation yesterday released a report on the living conditions of children whose parents died in the disaster and families that lost financial support.
The foundation surveyed 84 Morakot victims three weeks ago and found that most families, although they encountered hardship after the disaster, have managed to continue to lead normal lives and have found ways to cope with their loss.
Almost half of the respondents were teenagers aged between 12 and 18, followed by 21 percent who were between the ages of six and 12, 20 percent over 18 years of age and 11 percent who were younger than six.
Thirty-eight percent were still living in the home they had before the typhoon, 26 percent were living with relatives, 19 percent were living in rented housing and 13 percent were in government-built housing for typhoon victims, the survey found.
Through observing the families’ day-to-day living conditions, the foundation’s workers rated the financial condition, physical and mental health, academic performance, social relationships and family relationships of the victims on a scale of one to five.
The foundation said the average score of 3.59 showed that the lives of those that survived the typhoon were now somewhere between “average” and “fine.”
“Caring for the children will forever be our responsibility,” foundation executive director Alicia Wang (王育敏) said. “In the past year, we have provided them with regular check-ups, emotional support, financial subsidies, welfare information and many more services. In the future, the Child Welfare League Foundation will continue to help the children and families get through the hardship and find hope.”
After the victims shared their stories about how they had coped after Morakot took away their loved ones, first lady Chow Mei-ching (周美青) gave them flowers and a hug.
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