“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.
US President Donald Trump said "it’s up to" Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be "very unhappy" with a change in the "status quo," the New York Times said in an interview published yesterday. Xi "considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing," Trump told the newspaper on Wednesday. "But I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that," he added. "I hope he doesn’t do that." Trump made the comments in
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
Tourism in Kenting fell to a historic low for the second consecutive year last year, impacting hotels and other local businesses that rely on a steady stream of domestic tourists, the latest data showed. A total of 2.139 million tourists visited Kenting last year, down slightly from 2.14 million in 2024, the data showed. The number of tourists who visited the national park on the Hengchun Peninsula peaked in 2015 at 8.37 million people. That number has been below 2.2 million for two years, although there was a spike in October last year due to multiple long weekends. The occupancy rate for hotels
A cold surge advisory was today issued for 18 cities and counties across Taiwan, with temperatures of below 10°C forecast during the day and into tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. New Taipei City, Taipei, Taoyuan and Hsinchu, Miaoli and Yilan counties are expected to experience sustained temperatures of 10°C or lower, the CWA said. Temperatures are likely to temporarily drop below 10°C in most other areas, except Taitung, Pingtung, Penghu and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, CWA data showed. The cold weather is being caused by a strong continental cold air mass, combined with radiative cooling, a process in which heat escapes from
RSS