Tzu Chi group celebrates 40th anniversary as Taiwan's premier charitable association

This article was written by June Tsai and published by the Taiwan Journal on May 19, 2006. It features the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation in Taiwan, which recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of its establishment.

The Tzu Chi Foundation was established by Master Cheng Yen in 1966. It started out as a group who knitted socks for poor infants in eastern Taiwan's Hualien County. Today, it has grown into a transnational organization that easily rivals most governments in the world in terms of efficiency and end results. The foundation can mobilize its relief personnel to respond to disasters in the world's remotest places at an unbelievable speed, all the while continuing with its humanitarian projects in Taiwan and overseas.

Throughout the 40 years of its history, the Tzu Chi Foundation has been involved in charity work, community service and outreach programs, especially medical, educational and disaster relief. The foundation also provides long-term assistance to more than 30,000 families in Taiwan. At present, the foundation has over 4.5 million members at its 239 branches in 40 countries. More than 135,000 people around the world have received medical help or emergency relief from the foundation.

The presence of the Tzu Chi Foundation was felt in Iran and El Salvador, which recently experienced deadly earthquakes, and in Indonesia and Sri Lanka after they were hit by the South Asian tsunami. The foundation has been actively running relief camps for Hurricane Katrina victims in the United Sates, in Afghan refugee centers, in the homes of AIDS-afflicted orphans in South Africa, and in Taiwan after a deadly earthquake killed thousands in 1999. Indeed, the well-organized foundation is always on the front lines, ready to deliver help. It carries on until its work is through and its mission complete.

A celebration was recently held in eastern Taiwan's Hualien County, where the Tzu Chi Foundation is headquartered, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of its establishment. A letter was read from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who congratulated the foundation on its 40th birthday. "As a non-governmental organization associated with the Department of Public Information, you have pursued efforts worldwide in the fields of health care, education, humanitarian relief, community service and environmental protection. Through your poverty eradication programs, as well as building schools, hospitals and homes for victims of natural disasters, you are actively contributing towards the realization of the Millennium Development Goals," Annan's letter reads.

Annan's letter concludes by echoing the Tzu Chi Foundation's core belief that "the well-being of our world requires the transformation of human hearts". The foundation became an U.N.-affiliated non-governmental organization in 2003, after it contributed to relief efforts immediately after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001.

The Tzu Chi Foundation's chapters around Taiwan also held their own celebrations. Members of the public were invited to take part in the ritual of bathing the Buddha, in order to "cleanse their own hearts and respect the others as a Buddha". Other celebratory activities included the mobilization of more than 30,000 members of the foundation to sweep the streets of Taiwan on the World Earth Day on April 22; a number of lectures held at the foundation's branch offices around Taiwan; and an exhibition of old photos showing where the foundation's volunteers have been and how they have helped change lives for the better.