July 11, 2010
Reported by Chen Wei-chien
Written by Lydia Ma

Chu-Tang Presbyterian Church's Sunflower Education Program held its 8th convocation on June 30, 2010. It included a lot of choral and instrumental performances and skits that warmed the hearts of parents and guests because each performance was a testimony of the transformation in these youth's lives.

Several local officials and school principals attended this ceremony, gave words of encouragement, and handed out prizes and diplomas to graduating students. Changhua District Judge Chien Yan-tzu was invited to hand out scholarships to outstanding students.

Sunflower Education Program is run by Chu-Tang Presbyterian Church with a vision to help dropout students resume their studies. To this end, the program offers many individualized courses and counseling services catered to every student's particular circumstance and need.

Chu-Tang Church began this program in 2003 and has so far admitted 130 students living in Changhua area in the past few years, with 51 of them staying long enough to graduate from the program. Of those graduating students, 51% go on to find employment and 49% move on to pursue further studies at regular schools.

There are currently 18 students in the program and most of them are either raised by single parents or grandparents. Five students are graduating from the school this year and they've all been accepted to a college after scoring well enough in entrance exams.

According to Chu-Tang Presbyterian Church's pastor, Rev. Chuang Hsiao-shen, these teens are smart and it shouldn't be too hard for them to score well enough in entrance examinations and be accepted to a school.

Chuang believes what his church needs to do is simply encourage these youth to persevere and help them secure food and lodging once they enter college because so many of them come from broken families that cannot support them. He added that not every church is called to start a program for school dropouts, but he encouraged every church to consider starting afterschool programs that'd combine "One- leads-One movement" and tutoring to help struggling kids in the community and get them to church. To this end, young Christians can be trained to reach out to classmates from troubled or poor families.

Taiwan Church News