A local organization modeled after the Boston, Massachusetts-based Reach Out and Read (ROR) initiative is working with eight public health centers in remote areas to use vaccination visits as an opportunity to promote reading in children of preschool age.
ROR Taiwan was founded by Chen You-ta (陳宥達), a resident physician in Taipei Medical University Hospital’s Department of Family Medicine and the initiative’s chief executive officer.
Chen spent two months in the US exchanging ideas with and learning from Barry Zuckerman, one of the cofounders of the US organization, which has spread to all 50 US states since it was founded in 1989.
Photo courtesy of Chiu Shang-yu
ROR Taiwan has provided 2,000 children’s books, trained more than 130 volunteers and visited 95 families to date, and it has established locations at public health centers in Kaohsiung’s Namasiya District (那瑪夏); Yilan County’s Datong Township (大同); Miaoli County’s Jhoulan (卓蘭), Tongluo (銅鑼), Sanyi (三義) and Dahu (大湖) townships; Chiayi County’s Sikou Township (溪口); and Taitung County’s Daren Township (達仁).
The public health centers have transformed their waiting rooms into public reading spaces. ROR Taiwan also trains storytellers and youth volunteers spend their summer and winter breaks at the centers.
Chen grew up in a rural part of Changhua County and wanted to give back to the remote community using what he had learned, he said.
In 2015, when he was an intern at Tainan’s Chi Mei Medical Center, he decided to spend six months in Kaohsiung’s mountainous Namasiya District to engage with the community on a deeper level, he said.
He discovered that many children in remote areas were raised by their grandparents, or came from single-parent or low-income families, Chen said, adding that family roles had been lost.
What moved him the most was that many children received their first books when getting vaccinated, Chen said.
With the assistance of medical personnel, grandparents became more willing to spend time reading to their grandchildren, bridging the generation gap and allowing children in remote areas to find hope through reading, he said.
“[You] do not have to go to Bangladesh, Nepal or Africa to do charity work,” Chen said, adding that many regions in Taiwan are “waiting to be developed.”
Efforts of Taiwanese education authorities to promote reading are focused on elementary schools and libraries, he said, adding that education before the age of three is even more important and the government lacks policies to teach preschool-age children to read.
The initiative’s goal is to “leave no child behind,” Chen said, adding that its goal is to reach every disadvantaged family and use vaccination visits as an opportunity to promote reading.
When children have access to age-appropriate books, parents or guardians are more motivated to read with them, he said.
Reading not only helps children and their guardians nurture relationships, but also stimulates the development of their brains, he said, adding that the initialive would focus on training medical personnel and partnering with preschools this year.
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