Twenty-three children and teenagers have been recognized by the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families for their positive attitudes despite difficult circumstances.
One award recipient was 15-year-old Lo Ya-yin (羅雅尹), who has been collecting recyclables since she was four with her mother.
After her mother was paralyzed from the waist down, Lo helped massage her lower limbs to prevent them from atrophying.
“Mother always told me that if we survive the difficult times, then life would get better,” Lo said.
Lo added that she was almost adopted before reaching kindergarten age because of the family’s low income.
If it was not for her older brother, who refused to let anyone take her away, the family would not have remained together, she said.
However, she conceded that it was tough, adding that sometimes the family only had enough money to buy rice and soy sauce.
Having cooked from the age of 10, Lo said she aspires to be a chef.
Chen Kai (陳愷), another award recipient, was diagnosed with bone cancer when he was in the fourth grade.
Chen said that his strict doctor-recommended diet meant he could only watch as his classmates ate fried chicken and other treats, adding that he had to persuade himself that the smell of the food was enough to satisfy him.
Since being diagnosed, Chen has been in and out of hospital for chemotherapy, but since education is important to him, he had a tutor help him while he was hospitalized.
Chen said he understood how much his mother fears losing him, adding that all one can do with cancer is face it with humor and hope that the chemotherapy works.
Another student recognized by the foundation was junior-high school student Cho Li-wei (卓立唯), who lives with his grandmother.
Cho’s grandmother said Cho once found NT$20,000 at school, but turned the money in to police.
She said Cho was a very good person and always helped out around the house.
“There was one time when he had just come out of the shower and saw that I was about to take out the laundry to hang it and he rushed to take the laundry basket from me even though he was still only in his underwear,” Cho’s grandmother said.
Another award recipient was Lin Chien-ming (林建名), a sixth-grader who has been raised by his grandmother since his parents separated and his father was incapacitated by a stroke.
Lin said that the responsibility for the family’s finances had been assumed by his older sister after his grandmother also suffered a stroke.
Lin said he lacked self-esteem due to the family’s financial difficulties, but that he had found his confidence after joining the school band, which won a prize in a school competition.
Lin said because his sister had taken on the money-making role, he was tasked with caring for his grandmother, including helping to keep bugs away from her and getting her milk to drink every night.
Even though it takes 30 minutes to help his grandmother finish one cup of milk, it is still a job Lin said he finds happiness in doing.
Taiwanese scientists have engineered plants that can capture about 50 percent more carbon dioxide and produce more than twice as many seeds as unmodified plants, a breakthrough they hope could one day help mitigate global warming and grow more food staples such as rice. If applied to major food crops, the new system could cut carbon emissions and raise yields “without additional equipment or labor costs,” Academia Sinica researcher and lead author the study Lu Kuan-jen (呂冠箴) said. Academia Sinica president James Liao (廖俊智) said that as humans emit 9.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide compared with the 220 billion tonnes absorbed
The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Wanda-Zhonghe Line is 81.7 percent complete, with public opening targeted for the end of 2027, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said today. Surrounding roads are to be open to the public by the end of next year, Hou said during an inspection of construction progress. The 9.5km line, featuring nine underground stations and one depot, is expected to connect Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Station to Chukuang Station in New Taipei City’s Jhonghe District (中和). All 18 tunnels for the line are complete, while the main structures of the stations and depot are mostly finished, he
Taipei is to implement widespread road closures around Taipei 101 on Friday to make way for large crowds during the Double Ten National Day celebration, the Taipei Department of Transportation said. A four-minute fireworks display is to be launched from the skyscraper, along with a performance by 500 drones flying in formation above the nearby Nanshan A21 site, starting at 10pm. Vehicle restrictions would occur in phases, they said. From 5pm to 9pm, inner lanes of Songshou Road between Taipei City Hall and Taipei 101 are to be closed, with only the outer lanes remaining open. Between 9pm and 9:40pm, the section is
China’s plan to deploy a new hypersonic ballistic missile at a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) base near Taiwan likely targets US airbases and ships in the western Pacific, but it would also present new threats to Taiwan, defense experts said. The New York Times — citing a US Department of Defense report from last year on China’s military power — on Monday reported in an article titled “The missiles threatening Taiwan” that China has stockpiled 3,500 missiles, 1.5 times more than four years earlier. Although it is unclear how many of those missiles were targeting Taiwan, the newspaper reported
RSS