An enterprise that focuses on benefitting the community, from the Front Page Sections, translated…
A pair of bright red shoes, opened up the road to Wen-Jie Chen’s shoe donations path. As Wen-Jie Chen went to volunteer at the distant areas, she’d found a little boy, wearing his older sister’s bright red hand-me-down shoes, she was so shocked to find, that in Taiwan, there were children from poverty stricken regions who were laughed about because of the hand-me-down shoes they had on, she’d started the “BR Link” company, in three year’s time, she’d based off of the motto, “customers buy one, I donate one”, she’d given out a total of over 2,000 pairs of shoes, and over 700 articles of clothing.
not my photograph…
“A pair of shoes symbolized how much we cared and the faith we have for others.”, Wen-Jie Chen said, once she’d gone to a distant area elementary school in Taoyuan to volunteer, and bumped into a little boy, wearing pink shoes, because she loved pink, at the moment, she’d walked over to him, said to him happily, “We will become, the best of friends, because we loved the same color.”
Then, the little boy started wailing uncontrollably, she was stunned, and asked him what happened, turns out, that the little boy was from a poverty stricken background, that they couldn’t afford him new shoes, so, the parents put him in his older sister’s old shoes, and he was made fun of by his classmates for having “girly shoes” so, he’d hated the color pink, and hated this pair of shoes even more.
not my flyer…
That, was when Chen discovered, that there were people in Taiwan, who can’t even afford shoes, but, a lot of the children who lived below the poverty lines, wore “broken or bad shoes” and they were, made fun of by their peers, later on, through the helps from the volunteers, the teachers, she’d managed to, give the little boy a brand new pair of his own shoes, at the moment that she’d delivered the shoes to the child, the little boy had that radiant smile, it’d impressed her so, and helped her set her mind up on “shoe-giving”.
The well-known international brand, TOMS used the “buy one gift one” method, when the consumers buy a pair, the company would donate a pair on behalf of the consumers, to the distant regions of the world. Wen-Jie Chen said, the way that BR Link does it is “buy one pair, donate one pair”, because there are, an assortment of various products, anything from shoes, to essence oils, to reusable cups too, so long as the consumers manage to spent up to a certain limit, her company would donate a pair of shoes on the consumers’ behalf to the distant areas.
Other than Taiwan, Nepal, southern India, northern Thailand, Cambodia, Sichuan and Yunnan Provinces in China, are all the places she’d intended to send the goods to, her goal for this year is to give out six thousand pairs of shoes.
It takes a lot of research before this process of donation can happen, Wen-Jie Chen worked alongside the Welfare of Orphans Foundation, and with the help of the surveys conducted by the foundations, she’d gotten a better look into which children needed the shoes, and, she’d tallied up the statistics, and, waited until the numbers accumulated to the point of when she can ask the factories to mass produce, then, she’d asked the shoe factories to make the shoes, then, shipped the shoes to the foundation, to be distributed.
photo from the courtesy of UDN.com…
“I understand, that this doesn’t solve the issues of poverty, I’m merely trying to, shorten the distance between the rich and the poor.”, she said, with her small capabilities, she will, “help one at a time”, hoped, that the kids in poverty can start smiling, and find that dignity about themselves too.
So, this, is the heart of this young woman, and, she is able to, put her plans into action, and, her company is not just on making money, it’s a social welfare enterprise too, because it’s helping to give the children in poverty-stricken backgrounds something better to put on, and it all started with just that one encounter with that little boy she’d bumped into from way back when too…
Life, the Obstacle Course 