Philanthropist vegetable vendor Chen Shu-chu (陳樹菊) yesterday donated NT$15 million (US$537,095) to the Taitung County Government to set up a fund to provide financial assistance to pregnant women to help them give birth safely.
The fund would help pregnant women who cannot afford hospital care get access to antenatal examinations and offer assistance to children who lost their mothers during childbirth until the age of 12, the Taitung government said.
Taitung Department of Social Welfare Director Chen Shu-lan (陳淑蘭) said that Chen Shu-chu, who retired in early 2018, has donated a life insurance policy worth NT$15 million to set up the fund.
Photo: Huang Ming-tang, Taipei Times
Chen Shu-chu, who is in her 70s and had sold vegetables from her family’s market stall for more than half a century, wanted the funds to be used to commemorate her mother, who died during childbirth when Chen Shu-chu was in elementary school, Chen Shu-lan said.
Her family was poor at the time and could not afford hospital care for her mother, Chen Shu-lan said.
The county government expressed gratitude for the donation, saying that the fund would help lower risks women face during childbirth and enhance their welfare.
The fund would also provide scholarships to children who lose their mothers during childbirth, it said.
At the donation ceremony, Chen Shu-chu said that she had saved income from her family’s vegetable stall for more than five decades before retiring, so it was “natural” that she would do something to help her community in return.
“For me, the best way to live my life is to complete what I want to do,” she said. “As I am grateful to my mother for giving birth to me, but regret that she lost her life while in labor, I just want to help pregnant women who need financial support to make sure they are safe while giving birth.”
Chen Shu-chu has become famous for her philanthropy over the past few years.
In 2018, she donated two life insurance policies worth a total of NT$16 million to Taitung MacKay Memorial Hospital and Taitung Christian Hospital to set up two cancer treatment funds for the benefit of people in need.
When she retired, Chen Shu-chu said that she had a home and some savings, which would be enough for her to support herself for the rest of her life.
She is determined to continue providing as much help as she can to others, she said at the time.
In 2012, Chen Shu-chu was named one of six winners of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for helping poor people.
She donated the US$50,000 cash prize to Taitung Mackay Memorial Hospital.
In 2010, she was included in Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people for contributing more than NT$10 million to charitable causes, including a donation to build a library at Taitung’s Ren-Ai Elementary School, her alma mater, and another donation to sponsor poor children.
In the same year, she was also named one of 48 heroes of philanthropy by Forbes Asia.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
RSS