Seventy-four-year-old US Catholic priest Robert Crawford was granted honorary citizenship by Nantou County last Wednesday in recognition of his decades of work to provide care and services for mentally and physically challenged people.
Nantou County Commissioner Lee Chao-ching (李朝卿) presented the honorary citizenship certificate to Crawford at county hall, citing the priest’s devotion to equipping disabled young people with basic living skills.
Crawford first came to Taiwan in 1961 as a missionary, and since then has been devoting his efforts to social welfare work.
In 1988, Crawford joined efforts to establish an educational center in Changhua County for people with mental disabilities, and in 1992 founded a similar facility in Puli Township (埔里), Nantou County.
In 2004, the priest established a training center for persons with multiple disabilities at the Holy Rosary Church in Nantou’s Chushan Township (竹山). He started a daycare service, basic living skills training and home education for mentally and physically challenged youth over the age of 15.
Crawford, also known by the Chinese name Yu Jen-teh (游仁德), said his efforts to establish and operate educational facilities for people with mental disabilities was inspired by his own brother who suffers from Down Syndrome.
As special education programs in Taiwan cater mainly to teenagers and children, Crawford said, he founded the Rosary training center to help those who are older but could not manage their daily routines.
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner yesterday signed a coalition deal, paving the way for Sanae Takaichi to become the nation’s first female prime minister. The 11th-hour agreement with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) came just a day before the lower house was due to vote on Takaichi’s appointment as the fifth prime minister in as many years. If she wins, she will take office the same day. “I’m very much looking forward to working with you on efforts to make Japan’s economy stronger, and to reshape Japan as a country that can be responsible for future generations,”
SEVEN-MINUTE HEIST: The masked thieves stole nine pieces of 19th-century jewelry, including a crown, which they dropped and damaged as they made their escape The hunt was on yesterday for the band of thieves who stole eight priceless royal pieces of jewelry from the Louvre Museum in the heart of Paris in broad daylight. Officials said a team of 60 investigators was working on the theory that the raid was planned and executed by an organized crime group. The heist reignited a row over a lack of security in France’s museums, with French Minister of Justice yesterday admitting to security flaws in protecting the Louvre. “What is certain is that we have failed, since people were able to park a furniture hoist in the middle of
RSS