Taiwan Church News
3435 Edition
25 – 31 December, 2017
Church Ministry
Caring For Vulnerably Low-Paid Families Via Cycling Around Taiwan
Reported by Chiu Kuo-ron
At 7:30 am in the early morning on December 23, boosted by a group of big drums amid about 1,000 cyclists from Taipei city, a team of 38 cyclists recruited from the Chinese Christian Relief Association (CCRA) and Studio Classroom launched their 15 days cycling around Taiwan. This charity cycling journey is about 1,300 kilometer long, intending to raise attention and money for mass vulnerably low-paid families across Taiwan.
According to Taiwan government’s 2017 statistics of human resources and employment, among 8.98 million employees censused in Taiwan, there were still 3.05 million workers whose monthly salary was under USD 1,000. This meager phenomenon of low wage is a very serious crisis of Taiwan, not to mention those 805,000 part-time workers not covered in this report.
Rev Shia Chung-chien, General Secretary of CCRA, expressed that these low-paid families were very easily exposed to risks of natural disaster, severe working-injury or abrupt laid-off suddenly happened around the corner.
As in current Taiwan, there were no budgetary subsidy, government resource or tax exemption available to protect these low-paid families with an urgent relief, this is why the charity event of cycling around Taiwan was held to call Taiwan society to act for our most vulnerable brothers and sisters, Rev Shia remarked.
Translated by Peter Wolfe
