News and Events

Receipts for Burn Victims

Date 2012-10-06 4067 Clicks

On the afternoon of October 6, students from the TKU Department of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering went to various locations around Taipei City collecting receipts to help support burn victims.

In Taiwan, receipts collected from everyday purchases have numbers printed on them. If the number of a particular receipt matches that of the official “winning receipt numbers”, then the lucky receipt holder could win a government-granted cash reward of anything from NT $200 to $40,000.

The students – 62 in total – organized the fundraising activity as part of their compulsory service learning course, in which TKU students go into the community to help those in need. The recent fundraising effort was held for people who have suffered from severe burns and who face the aftereffects of such burns, which include self-consciousness and low self-esteem. The activity carries on from a previous TKU exercise, in which students walked around the Tamsui Campus with burn bandages that covered their heads to experience what it feels like to be different and to be stared at by strangers. This time, the students went to several areas around downtown Taipei with receipt collection baskets and wearing supportive bandages typically worn by burn victims. They headed to Vieshow Cinemas in the central Hsin Yi District, the Mitsukoshi Department Store near Taipei Main Station, to the major Eslite Bookstore in Hsin Yi, and other areas with large crowds of people.

The organizer of the event, Yeh Hui-ru, commented that “students should not only just focus on working to make money for themselves. They should also learn the importance of volunteer work and how a bit of selfless effort can make such a big difference to someone else’s life.

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