Under the coordination of the Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 315 boxes of summer clothing, school supplies, toys, and daily necessities were shipped in March to the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific to help the local poor. To avoid any damage of shipment by seawater, Tzu Chi volunteers sealed every corner of each box with tape.

The Solomon Islands are located 1,800 kilometers [1,118 miles] northeast of Australia and consist of nearly 1,000 islands of various sizes. Most of the 400,000 inhabitants are Christian. Rioting in 2000 greatly damaged the economy of the islands, but society has become more stable ever since. However, people still live hard lives.

The relief shipment was the second convoy sent by Tzu Chi, after one in May of 2000. Volunteers in various parts of Taiwan collected the goods and sent them to the Kaohsiung branch office in southern Taiwan, where local volunteers cleaned, sorted, and then boxed the relief goods. Volunteer Chen Su-chuan said that they selected toys that wouldn't injure or frighten children. Also, if any piece of clothing was torn or missing a button, for instance, they would find ways to mend it so that the clothing would appear beautiful and make those receiving it happy.

Caring from head to toe

Last October, several states in northern Malaysia suffered from huge floods. Tzu Chi volunteers went to inspect the disaster areas and distribute relief goods. They discovered that Rantau Panjang Elementary School in Kitah had sustained heavy damage. Furthermore, the clothing, shoes, and books of many children were so damaged that they had to wear casual outfits and slippers to school.

On February 8 this year, volunteers gave 26 sets of school uniforms to poor students, and on March 7, the volunteers handed out 204 white caps. Each cap had the school's name on the front and the student's name on the back. Zaida rides to school on her bicycle every day and goes home at 1 P.M., the time of the brightest sunlight, which always caused her to squint. She jumped with joy when she received her cap and said, "Now I don't have to wear my brother's cap, and I don't have to worry about my face getting burned!"

At the beginning of this year, volunteers took measurements of 26 impoverished students for their new school uniforms. On February 8, volunteers delivered white socks, white dresses, blue skirts, blue pants, and white shoes to these students.

Love in central Sydney

On February 15, protests by hundreds of aborigines broke out in the streets of central Sydney, Australia. A few hours before the incident, local Tzu Chi volunteers had just carried out their regular distribution of food to the aborigines in the area.

Some locals observed that the aborigines were protesting discrimination by mainstream society, which caused the aborigines to be dissatisfied with the government.

The area where the aborigines live has many problems: alcoholism, domestic violence, and drug abuse in many families. With the help of Barbara Stevens, a local schoolteacher, Tzu Chi volunteers have been able to distribute bread on a regular basis and provide other needed help to people for the past 18 months.

The husband of an aborigine named Tanya was jailed for arson six months ago, so she had to look after her three children. The home was dirty and the children didn't want to go to school because of their dirty clothes. On February 1, close to 20 Tzu Chi volunteers along with Uncle Phil, a neighboring aborigine, cleaned up her home.

A volunteer gave a clean bed sheet and a pillowcase to Tanya's two children, who happily laid them out on one bed. When Tanya saw the washing machine that the volunteers had brought, she said with tears, "No one has ever been so nice to us..."

Heavenly singing at a joint sports event

South African Tzu Chi schools have held a joint sports event four years in a row. On March 28 this year, over 1,000 students from seven Tzu Chi elementary schools and one kindergarten gathered in a stadium in Ladysmith for this annual event.

The first Tzu Chi school was built in 1997. Now, seven years later, Tzu Chi has helped build a total of seven elementary schools and a kindergarten, with more than 2,600 students in the system. Every year new students enter these schools and new graduates move on to secondary schools. The foundation hopes that as more and more students graduate from these Tzu Chi schools, they will one day bring hope to South African society.

The students sang Tzu Chi songs in Chinese and participated in various competitions and shows: hula-hoops, stage performances, puppet shows, and walking on stilts, among other activities. Shouts of excitement filled the stadium. Whether winning or losing, everyone was sweating with joy.

New school books in Argentina

"[Tzu Chi members] belong to a foreign organization with Asian faces. They have compassion and love and care about our children's future. And they use actions to cultivate education in Argentina." Principal Carmen Saradi thus announced the arrival of hundreds of new books at a meeting of all the teachers and students of the Monte Grande Elementary School No. 21 on March 10.

The school is about 25 kilometers [15.5 miles] from Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. It is a public school in a financially challenged district. The principal wrote a letter to a local newspaper to raise public awareness of poor students, and this inspired local Tzu Chi people to find out their needs.

The school has 850 students; 30 percent of them come from extremely poor families, and the rest are also poor. The school provides free lunch from Monday to Friday, but the free meal at school is probably the children's sole meal of the day--one reason why parents want to send their children to school. However, they lacked eating utensils, so Tzu Chi volunteers provided them to the school.

Last February, the volunteers discovered that the school had a recycling station to collect used clothes and shoes for families that needed them. The campus also had a vegetable garden, and a gas company gave students fruit and vegetable seeds so that they could learn about planting and growing food.

The volunteers were touched by Principal Saradi's desire to create a good learning environment, so they asked her if the school needed anything. The principal told them that the school was in need of more books for the library. On March 10, the volunteers arrived with 300 books for the school, which the principal and the students enthusiastically received.

Rice for fishing villages

Perkampungan Jaring Halus is a little fishing village on a small island north of Sumatra, Indonesia. Of the 800 villagers, all the men are fishermen. Because of their hard lives and isolation from the cities, many residents have resided on the island all their lives.

Five Tzu Chi people first went to inspect village conditions on March 24. They noticed the residents' homes were built with bamboo and tree leaves, which weren's strong enough to block wind and rain from their homes. Women picked clams for a living from 6 A.M. to 4 P.M., but that only brought in 5,000 rupiahs [US$0.50] a day. Their husbands couldn's catch enough fish because of the depleted fish stock.

Two days later, on March 26, 20 volunteers came to the island and distributed 12 tons of rice.

Since the beginning of February, Tzu Chi Indonesia volunteers have distributed 7,500 tons of rice to poor people around Medan. Earlier, on March 22, volunteers distributed 48 tons of rice to 2,500 families in five villages in Asahan. Asahan was once famous for producing clams, and the residents were rich in the early days. However, human civilization has destroyed the clams' natural habitat and the harvest of clams has been reduced. Harvesting of other fish stocks has been so reduced that many people have become unemployed and their lives have become miserable.

Visit by the King of Swaziland

King Mswati III of Swaziland came to Taiwan to attend the inauguration of President Chen Shui-bian on May 20. Afterwards, the king, accompanied by other royal family members and representatives from the Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, visited Tzu Chi headquarters on the island's east coast.

The group went to Still Thoughts Hall and received a briefing on the foundation's development and missions around the world, including those in Swaziland. The king was very pleased that Tzu Chi has shown so much love around the world.

In 1995 and 2003, Tzu Chi distributed clothes and rice to the poor in Swaziland. In 2003, Tzu Chi delivered white rice and blankets to around 1,000 poor and handicapped people there. These actions won the hearts of all Swazi people. King Mswati III thanked Tzu Chi for the display of love to his people and hoped to learn from Tzu Chi how to bring assistance to needy people.

Rebuilding schools in Medan

Medan, the capital of Northern Sumatra, is the third largest city in Indonesia and the gateway to the world for western Indonesia. Last year, Mayor Abudila of Medan asked Tzu Chi to help rebuild some of the public schools in the city. Five schools were in urgent need of reconstruction. The volunteers examined these schools and decided to rebuild schools 66, 67, and 68 near Belawan. These three schools suffered greatly from the ocean weather; their wooden walls had been damaged by wind and rain. Whenever there was an especially high tide, the sea would enter the classrooms and the students would have to stop their schooling. The roofs leaked whenever it rained. Six children shared one table.

Reconstruction started on July 1 last year and was completed on May 6 this year. Each school building was raised one meter [3.3 ft] to prevent flooding. Each school has two floors, 20 classrooms, two offices, one library, a dormitory, and a blue roof that proudly displays the Tzu Chi logo. The foundation also presented tables, chairs, and bookcases to the schools.　

Visit by Israeli representative

Ruth Kananoff, a representative of the Israel Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei, visited Master Cheng Yen on May 24. She was impressed with the Tzu Chi missions in Taiwan and around the world, and she hoped that in the future, Tzu Chi and Israel could cooperate with respect to charity and medical work.

Ms. Kananoff informed Master Cheng Yen that she had heard of Tzu Chi's charity and relief work before coming and that she admired the foundation's acceptance and love for all people regardless of their religious and racial backgrounds. The Master told her that people of any race and religious order have love in their hearts, so they should love each other.

Ms. Kananoff presented a little model of Jerusalem to the Master and the Master returned with an insignia commemorating Tzu Chi's 38th anniversary. Ms. Kananoff told the Master that Jerusalem was a sacred city of peace, and the Master prayed that the city would enjoy permanent peace in the near future.

Ms. Kananoff then went to visit Hualien Tzu Chi Hospital and was impressed with the hospital staff and volunteers for taking such good care of patients' physical illnesses and also, more importantly, their psychological needs. She said that hospitals in Israel also had many volunteers, but there was no organization like Tzu Chi. She felt that people nowadays were only concerned about themselves. They really needed someone like the Master who could organize them together into a powerful force to bring assistance to needy people. She hoped that Tzu Chi could cooperate with Israeli charity and medical care organizations.