Model and actress Lin Chi-ling (林志玲) hopes to follow the example of retired tennis player Andre Agassi and establish a charitable foundation to help needy children.
Lin drew inspiration for her ambition at a charity event in Taipei last month that she attended along with Agassi. At the event, which raised NT$1.5 million (US$51,670) for three social welfare groups, including the Taiwan Foundation for Rare Disorders, Lin renewed her acquaintance with Wu I-hsin (巫以欣), an 18-year-old girl suffering from Niemann-Pick disease.
Having first met Wu at an event arranged by the foundation three years earlier, Lin was shocked to find that Wu’s condition had worsened and that her younger brother had also fallen ill with the disease.
File Photo: Pan Shao-tang, Taipei Times
Seeing the difficulties Wu and her brother had to deal with, Lin said she hoped she could do more to help children like them, including setting up her own foundation.
The top model is no stranger to charitable activities. She served as an ambassador for the “HIV/AIDS Hope Initiative” organized by World Vision Taiwan in 2006, when she went to Swaziland to visit orphans whose parents had died of AIDS.
“Through the visit to children, I gained the power to go forward. Charity shouldn’t just be talk, but be carried out as a part of our life,” Lin said.
As for her own future, the model said: “Looking ahead to 2011, I hope that I can have more time to be with my family, or go on a trip to study or take a vacation and think carefully about the next step of my life.”
One of her options, she said, would be to follow the example of Agassi and his wife, Steffi Graf, and set up a charitable foundation.
Agassi set up the Andre Agassi Foundation for Education in 1994 to help children and in 2001 established the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy, a tuition-free charter school for at-risk children.
The first two F-16V Bock 70 jets purchased from the US are expected to arrive in Taiwan around Double Ten National Day, which is on Oct. 10, a military source said yesterday. Of the 66 F-16V Block 70 jets purchased from the US, the first completed production in March, the source said, adding that since then three jets have been produced per month. Although there were reports of engine defects, the issue has been resolved, they said. After the jets arrive in Taiwan, they must first pass testing by the air force before they would officially become Taiwan’s property, they said. The air force
GLOBAL: Although Matsu has limited capacity for large numbers of domestic tourists, it would be a great high-end destination for international travelers, an official said Lienchiang County’s (Matsu) unique landscape and Cold War history give it great potential to be marketed as a destination for international travelers, Tourism Administration Director General Chen Yu-hsiu (陳玉秀) said at the weekend. Tourism officials traveled to the outlying island for the Matsu Biennial, an art festival that started on Friday to celebrate Matsu’s culture, history and landscape. Travelers to Matsu, which lies about 190km northwest of Taipei, must fly or take the state-run New Taima passenger ship. However, flights are often canceled during fog season from April to June. Chen spoke about her vision to promote Matsu as a tourist attraction in
PAWSITIVE IMPACT: A shop owner said that while he adopted cats to take care of rodents, they have also attracted younger visitors who also buy his dried goods In Taipei’s Dadaocheng (大稻埕), cats lounging in shops along Dihua Street do more than nap amid the scent of dried seafood. Many have become beloved fixtures who double as photography models, attracting visitors and helping boost sales in one of the capital’s most historic quarters. A recent photo contest featuring more than a dozen shop cats drew more than 2,200 submissions, turning everyday cat-spotting into a friendly competition that attracted amateur and professional photographers. “It’s rare to see cats standing, so when it suddenly did, it felt like a lucky cat,” said Sabrina Hsu (徐淳蔚), who won the NT$10,000 top prize in
STRIKE: Some travel agencies in Taiwan said that they were aware of the situation in South Korea, and that group tours to the country were proceeding as planned A planned strike by airport personnel in South Korea has not affected group tours to the country from Taiwan, travel agencies said yesterday. They added that they were closely monitoring the situation. Personnel at 15 airports, including Seoul’s Incheon and Gimpo airports, are to go on strike. They announced at a news conference on Tuesday that the strike would begin on Friday next week and continue until the Mid-Autumn Festival next month. Some travel agencies in Taiwan, including Cola Tour, Lion Travel, SET Tour and ezTravel, said that they were aware of the situation in South Korea, and that group
RSS