Liberian First Lady Visits Tzu Chi Taipei Branch Office

Jewel Howard Taylor, First Lady of Liberia, came to visit the Tzu Chi Taipei branch office on November 8. On behalf of her people, she expressed sincere gratitude to Tzu Chi for sending a forty-foot container of clothes to Liberia.

Liu King-pong, editor-in-chief of the Tzu Chi foreign language publications department, welcomed her on behalf of the foundation and briefed her on Tzu Chi's missions and development. He also took her to the finance department, where all the donations in Taipei are collected. He showed her a small collection booklet, pointing out that donations to Tzu Chi are usually in very low denominations, and that Tzu Chi brings all the money together to carry out its charity work. Mrs. Taylor remarked that Tzu was illuminating Buddha's spirit.

President Taylor of Liberia came to Taiwan on November 5 for a week-long visit. Before their arrival, Mrs. Taylor expressed her wish to visit Tzu Chi, but due to their extremely tight schedule, she could not visit Master Cheng Yen in Hualien. Thus, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs arranged for her visit to the Tzu Chi Taipei branch office.

Protecting the Environment

Recently, environmental protection has become one of Tzu Chi's most important activities. From the United States and Canada in the north to Malaysia and Australia in the south, overseas Tzu Chi members are cleaning up the environment to make their communities better places.

Sister Tzu Lu in Malacca, Malaysia, was deeply touched by the concern of Tzu Chi environmental protection volunteers in Taiwan. She thus started promoting the concept of environmental protection in Malacca and Kuala Lumpur in 1995. In 1997, people in cities like Ipoh and Penang also joined the campaign.

Malaysian Tzu Chi members put aside a day every month to clean up their environment. This force has slowly permeated every part of society, so that companies now provide trucks to carry off garbage and students go to various liaison and branch offices to sort and bundle recyclable materials. Even grandparents take home cardboard boxes for further use.

Soon Kim Hok, DSM, PJK, JP, of Malacca played the saxophone at this year's Chinese New Year celebration and helped Tzu Chi to buy a recycling truck. A Ms. Lin in Penang had heard that the funds collected from Tzu Chi's recycling program went to help kidney dialysis patients, and she spread the news to her relatives and friends. Now her home is a collection center.

In Sarawak, recycling is carried out on the barter system. Private recycling companies give tissue paper, toilet paper, notebooks or car batteries in exchange for recyclable goods. Tzu Chi members then sell these materials to various schools. The city government also pays money to anyone who brings in recyclable materials.

It has been said that if you see garbage or filth on the streets, you are most likely in Chinatown. However, many Tzu Chi people in the United States, Canada and Australia do "spiritual formation" by sweeping the streets. They not only make the streets cleaner and reshape the image of Chinese in the area, but they also purify their own minds.

Members of the Tzu Chi U.S. branch office have been sweeping streets and cleaning up the environment in the Los Angeles Chinatown since March 1992. Tzu Chi members in New York, Seattle, Hawaii and Vancouver, Canada, are also sweeping streets. Members in New York even rented a huge steam cleaning machine to remove dirt from the streets. As a result, many businesses and families that had been indifferent to their own environment now pitch in to help and even provide water to clean up streets.

Besides cleaning up streets, Tzu Chi members also clean up beaches or mountains. For example, Tzu Chi members in Hawaii and Texas help clean local beaches. The Gulf coast and the Hawaiian beaches are famous tourist spots, which translates to many tourists and a lot of garbage. The sole purpose for cleaning up the beaches is to lead all people to love every piece of land they stand on.

The first Sunday of March every year is "Australia Clean-up Day." Tzu Chi Members in Sydney started cleaning up mountains, beaches and streets in 1992. While they were cleaning up a mountain area one day, an Australian girl very excitedly ran up to them and said that she wanted to join Tzu Chi's mission. She remarked that Australia was very dirty, but that no Australian wanted to clean it up by himself. She felt embarrassed that it was a group of zealous Asians who were cleaning up her home.

Smiling Faces Under the Shining Sun

There is still a great shortage of available funds for education in South Africa. Tzu Chi members in Ladysmith decided to build ten new classrooms for Amancamakazana Elementary School in Vukuzakhe. Construction began in April this year and was completed at the end of June. However, the interior of each classroom still needed furnishing. On November 8, the classrooms were completely finished. Principal Jabulani M. Buthelezi said delightedly that students can now come to school without worrying about bad weather.

In order to fully realize the Tzu Chi spirit in local education, foundation members in South Africa held the first Still Thoughts lecture the next day. Brother Hsu Hsiang-ming and other members also presented copies of Master Cheng Yen's Still Thoughts to the principal, teachers and students. Thus, everyone at the school will be able to bring words from Still Thoughts to their minds every day.

U.S. Free Clinic Wins Sterling Award

The U.S. Tzu Chi Free Clinic Center has received the Sterling Award from the San Gabriel Valley Medical Center Foundation, a non-profit charity group. Kay O'Brien, executive secretary of the foundation, noted that Tzu Chi was the first Asian, and the first Buddhist, organization to receive the award. She observed that the Tzu Chi Free Clinic Center provided free medical services and medicine in the San Gabriel Valley to destitute residents, who had neither medical insurance nor any government suppor and were thus rejected by hospitals or clinics when they became ill. The Tzu Chi free clinic was the last hope for this group of people. Ms. O'Brien hoped that the award would draw attention to the center s activities.

The Tzu Chi Free Clinic Center was established in Alhambra in the San Gabriel Valley on November 1, 1993. Volunteers from all levels of the community carry out 95% of the center's operations, and every month at least another 150 doctors, nurses and administrative volunteers come to help. The center has served more than 32,000 local residents, including Chinese, Filipinos, African-Americans, etc. This year, the service has been expanded so that the center now actively goes out and searches for patients. Its service has also been extended to destitute villages near the Mexican border and to the monks and residents of the City of Ten Thousand buddhas in northern California.

Tzu Chi Marrow Donor Registry Establishes HLA Laboratory

The Tzu Chi Marrow Donor Registry human leukocyte antigen laboratory officially began operations on November 8, headed by Dr. Li Cheng-tao, a well-known immunologist. Dr. Li will apply the newest methods of DNA sequencing analysis to examine and match bone marrow samples.

Since 1993, when the data bank was established, all marrow samples have been sent to a lab in the United States for testing. Now the establishment of the HLA laboratory can help elevate HLA test standards here in Taiwan. Furthermore, there will be no need to send samples abroad for testing anymore, and all the samples now in the United States can be brought back home to the laboratory. The lab can thus save time for any patient who urgently needs a marrow match.

The Tzu Chi bone marrow donor registry, currently with 156,204 registrants, is the largest in Asia. It has signed cooperation agreements with registries in the United States, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore. In the last four years, 3,281 patients in Taiwan and abroad have requested marrow matches and 76 transplants have been carried out.

Tzu Chi Marrow Donor Registry Sets up
Umbilical Cord Blood Bank

The Tzu Chi Marrow Donor Registry announced on November 8 that it will set up an "Umbilical Cord Blood Bank" in Taiwan and mainland China to assist more people with blood diseases.