A college lecturer who has collected bread rolls and loaves from bakeries for three years to distribute to people living in remote mountain villages every week is now known by indigenous children in Pingtung County as their “bread winner.”
Wang Chang-ju (王常如), a lecturer at Fooyin University in Kaohsiung County, has never taken time off distributing food in Sandimen Township (三地門), a mountainous area populated by the Rukai tribe, since being told more than three years ago that children there needed “bread” far more than money or video games.
Wang, currently a doctorate candidate in dentistry at Kaohsiung Medical University, was in the area doing research on betel nuts and their impact on indigenous culture when she discovered that children in the township were generally shorter and thinner than their counterparts elsewhere in Taiwan.
She learned that Sandimen was an economic backwater lacking basic necessities because of poor transportation links. Because of the lack of access, most children suffered malnutrition.
“There wasn’t even a bakery there,” she said.
Because children in the isolated village dreamed of “having bread to eat,” Wang launched her bread donation program. But it got off to a bumpy start.
When she asked bakeries in the Kaohsiung area to donate their unwanted bread to the cause, many mistook her for a fraudster trying to con them into giving away their bread.
Undaunted, she visited one bakery after another throughout Kaohsiung City and County, telling them she wanted to collect unwanted but edible rolls or toast for malnourished children living in the mountains of Pingtung County.
Her persistence paid off. She eventually recruited 16 bakeries to regularly contribute bread.
After collecting the bread, Wang and two friends drove from Kaohsiung to Pingtung to deliver it to the eager children. Over the years, Wang and her friends have brought more than 50,000 rolls to the township annually, and their compassionate deed has inspired others.
Members of the Chiayi Charity Organization based in Chiayi County decided to rebuild a bridge in Wutai (霧台) — another Rukai township bordering Sandimen — that had been damaged by a typhoon many years ago. After raising NT$10 million (US$304,800) for the project, the organization began construction of the bridge early this year and completed it on May 23. It was the 400th bridge that the charity group has built in Taiwan at its own expense.
Wang said the bridge would serve as a new lifeline for residents of the township.
Wang has also helped Sandimen farmers sell their crops to several restaurants located near Kaohsiung Medical University, and has arranged for the restaurants to give their leftovers to the farmers to be used in making soap or organic fertilizers.
All of these activities, Wang said, have only one purpose, one that she remains committed to.
“I hope our ‘bread trips’ to the mountains will have an even greater impact on improving the well-being of people living up there,” she said.
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan would issue a decision at 8pm on whether to cancel work and school tomorrow due to forecasted heavy rain, Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said today. Hsieh told reporters that absent some pressing reason, the four northern cities would announce the decision jointly at 8pm. Keelung is expected to receive between 300mm and 490mm of rain in the period from 2pm today through 2pm tomorrow, Central Weather Administration data showed. Keelung City Government regulations stipulate that school and work can be canceled if rain totals in mountainous or low-elevation areas are forecast to exceed 350mm in
EVA Airways president Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明) and other senior executives yesterday bowed in apology over the death of a flight attendant, saying the company has begun improving its health-reporting, review and work coordination mechanisms. “We promise to handle this matter with the utmost responsibility to ensure safer and healthier working conditions for all EVA Air employees,” Sun said. The flight attendant, a woman surnamed Sun (孫), died on Friday last week of undisclosed causes shortly after returning from a work assignment in Milan, Italy, the airline said. Chinese-language media reported that the woman fell ill working on a Taipei-to-Milan flight on Sept. 22
COUNTERMEASURE: Taiwan was to implement controls for 47 tech products bound for South Africa after the latter downgraded and renamed Taipei’s ‘de facto’ offices The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is still reviewing a new agreement proposed by the South African government last month to regulate the status of reciprocal representative offices, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. Asked about the latest developments in a year-long controversy over Taiwan’s de facto representative office in South Africa, Lin during a legislative session said that the ministry was consulting with legal experts on the proposed new agreement. While the new proposal offers Taiwan greater flexibility, the ministry does not find it acceptable, Lin said without elaborating. The ministry is still open to resuming retaliatory measures against South
1.4nm WAFERS: While TSMC is gearing up to expand its overseas production, it would also continue to invest in Taiwan, company chairman and CEO C.C. Wei said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has applied for permission to construct a new plant in the Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區), which it would use for the production of new high-speed wafers, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council, which supervises three major science parks in Taiwan, confirmed that the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau had received an application on Friday from TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, to commence work on the new A14 fab. A14 technology, a 1.4 nanometer (nm) process, is designed to drive artificial intelligence transformation by enabling faster computing and greater power
RSS