Five of TKU’s social welfare clubs: Children’s Welfare Club, Torch Welfare Club, Chin-cheng Social Club, Tamkang Coach Club and Chinese Music Club, have won “The 11th University Youth Social Welfare Clubs Awards’ organized by the Culture Foundation of United Daily News. They will receive their prize money which range from NT$ 30,000 to 10,000 on Dec. 21 at the ceremony held in the United Daily News 2nd Building, Taipei.

The organizer has divided a total of the NT$ 700,000 grant into two categories: Good Performance and Event Sponsorship and 36 university student associations and clubs have been selected to be awarded with the money. Among them, TKU’s Children’s Welfare Club will receive NT$ 30,000, Torch Welfare NT$ 20,000, Chin-cheng Social Club, Tamkang Coach Club and Chinese Music Club will receive NT$ 10,000 each for Event Sponsorship. These five clubs account for 1/7th of the total clubs selected—an achievement that is only second to National Taiwan University whose six student clubs have been selected.

The category of Event Sponsorship Awards is based on the events student clubs have organized or assisted, so the grant they receive is towards sponsoring these events. Torch Welfare Club, for example, goes to the schools for mentally and physically handicapped people in San-shia and Pa-li three times every semester to provide a much needed service. They will continue their charity work in the coming winter break and will host a hands-on camp teaching general public the experience of disabled people at the beginning of next semester. As for Tamkang Coach Club, they focus on the elementary schools in Tamsui area. The members of the club provide individual coaching to the pupils based on their needs. They also do group coaching or consulting. Chin-cheng Social Club, on the other hand, helps out at Jen-chi Old Folks’ Home and Wen-hwa Elementary School five times per week.

Although Chinese Music Club is the only club that is not a social welfare club in a strict sense, it often provides music free of charge to people wherever they visit. This summer they are going to form a Culture and Arts Goodwill Mission to visit various places for five days to entertain general public.