The consumer vouchers to be issued by the government may not sound like much to most people, but for families living in poverty, they could make a crucial difference, the Children’s Welfare League Foundation said yesterday, calling for donations to the nation’s poor.
“For many people, NT$3,600 may not be much more than pocket money to spend on leisure and consumer goods, but for economically disadvantaged families, it could be life-saving money,” foundation executive director Alicia Wang (王育敏) said.
“You may not know it, but NT$3,600 can buy six cans of powdered milk to feed an orphan or a kid in a disadvantaged family for three months. It can buy fifteen 1.5kg packs of rice to feed 15 families for a month. It can buy nine winter outfits to keep nine kids from poor families warm even on a cold day like this,” Wang said.
Wang cited an informal online survey conducted by the Internet portal Yahoo-Kimo last month, which showed that near 50 percent of 27,163 respondents planned to use their NT$3,600 consumer vouchers on leisure and luxuries such as travel and gourmet food.
The vouchers will be distributed starting next Sunday.
On the other hand, more than 90 percent of 244 households living below the poverty line said in a survey conducted by the foundation that they would use the coupons to buy basic necessities like rice, vegetables, meat, canned food or toilet paper, or to pay the rent, Wang said.
“The global economic crisis has had an impact on everybody — but it has hit economically disadvantaged families the hardest and has pushed them into a corner,” Wang said. “Wage earners in these families have been laid off and many are unable to find even simple part-time jobs like handing out flyers on the street.”
With some families struggling to put food on the table, Wang said the foundation hoped people who are well off would donate their consumer vouchers to the foundation to help those in need.
“Although more than 90 percent of disadvantaged families said in the survey that the consumer vouchers would help them, 80 percent estimated that the consumer vouchers could cover their spending for only less than a month,” she said. “They need your help.”
Tropical Storm Nari is not a threat to Taiwan, based on its positioning and trajectory, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Nari has strengthened from a tropical depression that was positioned south of Japan, it said. The eye of the storm is about 2,100km east of Taipei, with a north-northeast trajectory moving toward the eastern seaboard of Japan, CWA data showed. Based on its current path, the storm would not affect Taiwan, the agency said.
The Taipei Department of Health’s latest inspection of fresh fruit and vegetables sold in local markets revealed a 25 percent failure rate, with most contraventions involving excessive pesticide residues, while two durians were also found to contain heavy metal cadmium at levels exceeding safety limits. Health Food and Drug Division Director Lin Kuan-chen (林冠蓁) yesterday said the agency routinely conducts inspections of fresh produce sold at traditional markets, supermarkets, hypermarkets, retail outlets and restaurants, testing for pesticide residues and other harmful substances. In its most recent inspection, conducted in May, the department randomly collected 52 samples from various locations, with testing showing
The government should improve children’s outdoor spaces and accelerate carbon reduction programs, as the risk of heat-related injury due to high summer temperatures rises each year, Greenpeace told a news conference yesterday. Greenpeace examined summer temperatures in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Hsinchu City, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung to determine the effects of high temperatures and climate change on children’s outdoor activities, citing data garnered by China Medical University, which defines a wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT) of 29°C or higher as posing the risk of heat-related injury. According to the Central Weather Administration, WBGT, commonly referred to as the heat index, estimates
Taipei and other northern cities are to host air-raid drills from 1:30pm to 2pm tomorrow as part of urban resilience drills held alongside the Han Kuang exercises, Taiwan’s largest annual military exercises. Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung, Taoyuan, Yilan County, Hsinchu City and Hsinchu County are to hold the annual Wanan air defense exercise tomorrow, following similar drills held in central and southern Taiwan yesterday and today respectively. The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) and Maokong Gondola are to run as usual, although stations and passenger parking lots would have an “entry only, no exit” policy once air raid sirens sound, Taipei
RSS