September 12, 2010
Reported by Chen Wei-chien
Written by Lydia Ma

It's the start of another school year and the time of the year when many parents are scrambling to make ends meet and wondering once again how they will manage to afford their children's tuition fees this year in eye of the ever-increasing economic disparity between Taiwan's richest and poorest.

To help some 42,000 financially struggling students across Taiwan go to school, World Vision has begun a campaign to provide them with bursaries so they don't give up their schooling simply because they cannot afford it.

So far, the Changhua branch of World Vision has already handed out bursaries to 1,350 students from disadvantaged families. According to reports, preschool, elementary and junior high school students have received NT$2,500, senior high school and vocational school students have received NT$5,000, and college students have received NT$10,000.

Most students benefitting from this program are from single-parent families, remote areas, off- shore islands, or raised by their grandparents because their own parents couldn't take care of them.

Shortly after last year's financial crisis, Rev. Tsai Mao-tang from He-ping Presbyterian Church in Taipei, a church devoted to college ministries, urged Christians to start a love fund to help struggling families and managed to raise more than NT$5 million. Now, the church is starting a love fund especially for students to help them pay their way through college.

In south Taiwan, a pastor's wife from a church in the outskirts of Tainan City is urging fellow Christians to donate money to help a youth from her church whose parents cannot afford her high school tuition and living expenses. Lu Li-li has begun a fundraiser coined "Operation Daddy Long-Legs" to help the girl and urged Christians to show their trademark kindness and generosity.

Taiwan Church News