The Teacher Chang Foundation, which is known for its telephone counseling service, said yesterday it has launched a video channel on YouTube and would activate a text-messaging account on the popular mobile phone application Line by the end of the year to reach out more young people in need.
It added that it also plans to expand the number of its workers in New Taipei City and Greater Tainan and that starting April 1, its “1980” service hotline became toll-free for calls from landlines and payphones.
The foundation was created 45 years ago by the China Youth Corps, which was established by then-premier Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) in response to rising problems among the nation’s teenagers and young people.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
To celebrate the organization’s 45th anniversary, the foundation yesterday unveiled a statue of Sung Shih-hsuan (宋時選), who was listed first on the rotation list of the telephone counselors when the foundation was set up in 1969.
Besides telephone counselors, the foundation has also experts in psychology, social work and psychiatric treatment. The foundation has 12 counseling centers nationwide.
According to the foundation, it receives more than 250 calls to its counselling service on a normal day.
In addition to young people, the foundation also handles counseling requests from the general public. It has set up a special service line to help people quit smoking.
Special counseling was also made available to people affected by the 921 Earthquake in 1999 and the disasters caused by Typhoon Morakot in 2009.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
The National Immigration Agency has banned two Chinese from returning to Taiwan, after they published social media content it described as disrespectful to national sovereignty. The agency imposed a two-month ban on a Chinese man surnamed Liang (梁) and a permanent ban on a woman surnamed Yang (楊), an influencer with 23 million followers, in October last year and last week respectively. Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) yesterday said on the sidelines of a legislative meeting that Chinese visitors to Taiwan are required to comply with the rules and regulations governing their entry permits. The government has handled the ban and
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