World Vision Taiwan, the local chapter of the international Christian charity, yesterday launched its 20th 30-Hour Famine 2009, with 15,000 participating to promote public awareness of the need to fight global hunger.
This year's rally carries special meaning in the wake of Typhoon Morakot, which devastated southern Taiwan. The participants will be praying for the typhoon survivors and appealing for more funds for relief and rehabilitation efforts.
Artists from major record labels are supporting the event, which is part of the group's global movement to increase public involvement, especially among young people, who fast for 30 hours to raise money for people suffering from famine in poor countries.
The program is one of World Vision Taiwan's three principal fund-raising activities, the other two being a child sponsorship program that helps poor children in Taiwan and abroad and a program that assists local and overseas development projects.
Three African beneficiaries under World Vision Taiwan's sponsorship program have traveled to Taiwan to express their appreciation and share how Taiwanese have helped them change their lives.
Two of the visitors said in a recent interview that the assistance they received from Taiwan not only brought hope to their devastated lives, but also helped them get back on their feet and out of danger and poverty.
“It is very difficult for me to tell my story. I owe so much to the Taiwanese people who helped me and every day I pray for God's blessings for them,” said Alex Gahigi, a survivor of the 1994 Rwanda genocide.
Gahigi, who was only eight when the genocide occurred, was forced to shoulder the responsibility of taking care of his nine-month-old brother and two-year-old sister after his parents were killed.
Hunger was a common occurrence for Gahigi, who said that a single meal a day for him and his siblings would be considered a luxury. They could only beg for food or do simple chores in exchange for food, he said.
“I could not see what my future held after losing my parents, but God was so merciful that I and my brother and sister survived the humanitarian disaster by fleeing to Congo,” said Gahigi, whose expressionless face bears testament to his harsh and difficult past.
After joining the Orphan and Vulnerable Children project under World Vision's Buliza Area Development Program six years ago, Gahigi trained to become a carpenter and now makes a living making furniture. He is now married with two children of his own.
Mohamed Tamba Kambo, a 19-year-old from Sierra Leone, ran into a delegation from World Vision Taiwan in May while he was looking for diamonds to eke out a living.
Because of poverty, he was forced to drop out of school and spend 10 hours a day in a deserted diamond mine looking for something valuable. However, he found only one tiny rock worth just US$3 in two weeks.
Kambo said World Vision Taiwan not only helped him go back to school but also set his life on the right track.
“Education is very important because it brings hope to people for a better future,” said Kambo, who is majoring in English and aspires to become a teacher or doctor.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty