A former gangster from New Taipei City, who has served time for homicide, has surprised family and friends by changing his life around to spearhead charity campaigns with his journeys around the nation giving aid to needy causes.
Yen Wei-hsun (顏維勳) has spent the past 30 days traveling around the nation, visiting more than 200 orphanages, care centers for people with mental or physical disabilities, remote villages and nursing homes.
“There are so many needy and disadvantaged people in all corners of our society. Every day they persevere steadfastly in their struggle for a living, ” Yen said, when asked about his work.
Photo: Wang Hsiu-ting, Taipei Times
In his most recent circuit around the nation, the 36-year-old Yen purchased food and grocery items from the NT$250,000 he had collected from kindhearted netizens who had responded to his online donation drive. Yen, accompanied by his girlfriend, drove his car to deliver the goods to places and people in need.
“My role is like a conduit for the many charitable netizens. I help to deliver their love to places where it is needed the most,” he said.
This is his third year of round-the-island donation journeys. In the first year, Yen visited 102 social welfare institutions and care centers to donate goods. Last year, he visited 150, and this year, he has visited 201.
“Their needs vary at different times of the year. So I headed out on each journey at different seasons over the past three years. Next year, I intend to go in the autumn... My plan is to bring along a band next time, to provide musical entertainment and some fun to needy people living in the remote areas,” he said.
“People in these places need more than just donations of goods and food items. They also need the public to pay more attention to their plight. I hope to raise awareness with my efforts, so more people can be reborn and live a new life,” Yen said.
In his younger days, Yen was involved in gangs and criminal activities. At 23, he was in a brawl in which one person was killed at a KTV parlor. Yen was found responsible for the death and convicted of homicide. He served four years in prison for the crime.
After his release, Yen was in trouble again for possession of a handgun, which he said a friend handed to him for safekeeping. Facing criminal charges again, Yen realized that this time he might end up in jail for a long time. Fortunately for him, the presiding judge thought Yen had a chance of turning over a new leaf and gave him a suspended sentence.
At the time, Yen said he had a dream one night in which a deity from the local Five Royal Lords Temple in Banciao (板橋) came to deliver a personal message exhorting him to turn away from crime and start doing charity work to help the disadvantaged.
That inspired Yen to turn his life around, and he began organizing a charitable group with other friends. They began with donation drives to help welfare centers and needy people in the Banciao area.
After learning that there were many more cases of disadvantaged families requiring assistance all over the nation, Yen hit upon the idea of going around the country to deliver goods to these places in person.
“My attitude and life philosophy have changed greatly in recent years, after meeting with disadvantaged groups. I had a fiery temperament and easily get riled up. Now I take things in stride and always count my blessings. I have learned to utilize my own strength to help others in need and not use it to hurt people,” Yen said.
Accompanying him on these journeys is his girlfriend, Huang Yu-ya (黃郁雅), who has seen Yen’s transformation from a gangster to a benefactor of the poor and the needy.
“Although many people laugh at Yen for his work and call him a fool, he is determined to carry on with these charity efforts. I see that he is a fool who has realized the error of his past ways and changed his life around,” Huang said.
“The trips around Taiwan are exhausting and require lots of effort, but he derives happiness from helping others,” she said.
“It’s like one single chopstick is nothing without the strength of 10 chopsticks bundled together. Yen sees that he can be the force that binds the chopsticks together, to enable him to do more good in society,” Huang said.
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