For 10 years, Tsui Mama Rental Service (
And yesterday, members of Taipei's first and only non-profit rent referral service, celebrating its 10-year birthday, said it is interested in playing a more active role as a grass-roots community organizer.
"We are like a big family and we're always happy to help," said Lu Chia-han (
People like Lu have kept the non-profit organization going for 10 years, said chairman Lin Te-fu (
With the help of hundreds of volunteers, the group has introduced 150,000 flat-owners to 300,000 tenants. Its volunteer team of attorneys has mediated in 4,000 landlord-tenant disputes.
Over the past three years, the group has expanded its activities to revitalization projects in its neighborhood, including the reconstruction of Wenchou Park (
In the wake of the "Snails without Shells" movement against skyrocketing housing prices in 1989, a group of activists called their movement "Tsui Mama" in memory of Tsui Chen Shue-jin (
The housing service group was determined to serve as a long-term base for the social movement on affordable housing.
"Tsui Mama is a little giant in the big city. It's a great philanthropist and a great business," said Pan Yun-chin (
Angered at skyrocketing housing prices, Shen Ping-wu (
"I've always wanted to volunteer for society," he said.
Shen met his wife Esther Li (
"The reason? Because she is a very devoted volunteer!" he said.
Four couples have met and married while working as volunteers at Tsui Mama during the past ten years.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS