ENVELOPING THE WORLD WITH GREAT LOVE

Beginning in 1994, North Korea endured consecutive years of natural disasters. Heavy rains, droughts and tsunamis seemed to always hit right before harvest season, leading to severe food shortages. According to statistics compiled by international organizations, in the six years since 1994, hundreds of thousands of people have died from starvation or malnutrition.

Between January 1998 and March 2000, Tzu Chi sent aid to North Korea seven times. Relief items included rice, canned food, powdered milk, fertilizer, farming equipment and winter clothes.

In September 1999, two months before Tzu Chi's sixth relief mission in North Korea, Taiwan was hit by a massive earthquake. Although the foundation devoted full efforts to emergency relief and reconstruction work on the island, the original plan to distribute rice in North Korea was duly carried out in the spirit of good faith.

In socialist North Korea, people rely on the government's rationing system for food, clothing and housing. In the past, international humanitarian organizations were not allowed to enter the country to deliver relief items. Only a simple donation ceremony would be held at the port of entry. But on Tzu Chi's sixth relief mission, the North Korean government decided to respect the foundation掇 principle of directness in carrying out humanitarian assistance and granted entry to fifty Tzu Chi volunteers, who went to the countryside and personally distributed rice to over forty thousand families. It was an event to be remembered for both the North Korean people and Tzu Chi.

Agriculture and manufacturing are the two main sources of North Korea's national income. In the spring and summer of 1999, Tzu Chi donated chemical fertilizers in three phases, in accordance with the different stages of cultivation such as sowing and planting seedlings. This method contributed to a great increase in rice yields in the principle agricultural zones. Sufficient food intake helped laborers regain energy and get back to work.

North Koreans rely heavily on rice as a staple food source. Yet in 1999, of all the international relief organizations that together donated almost ten thousand tons of food, only Tzu Chi provided rice. The citizens of the city of Kaichuan, one of Tzu Chi's distribution sites, were overjoyed to have rice to eat again. One local remarked, "I am going to save this rice for special occasions such as national holidays or my children's birthdays."

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