Mission helps vulnerable families as COVID restrictions shut down jobs, schools

Press release by Mustard Seed Mission

Taiwan has experienced a severe rise in COVID-19 cases since May and a nationwide level 3 COVID-19 alert has been extended to June 28th.

Some industries have stopped work, and schools are closed. With a network of 9,000 community partners all over Taiwan, including caring stores and partner churches, the Mustard Seed Mission (MSM) has been providing assistance to vulnerable families and people in need by launching emergency relief funds, epidemic prevention kits, and children’s meals since May 19th.

Epidemic Prevention Supplies Kits including rice, noodles, canned food, soap, oil, noodles, instant noodles, are helping an estimated 3,500 vulnerable families experiencing a sudden income drop to fill their urgent shortage of basic life supplies. Up till now, with the assistance of village chiefs, partner churches, and MSM food banks, about 300 households have received the supplies kits, with about 1,200 beneficiaries in total.

Children’s suspended meals service is mainly provided to children who have lost their daily nutritional meals due to school suspension. Since May 19th, Children’s Suspended Meals have been provided to 50 disadvantaged children on average every day, with a total of 1,250 meals served. Yu Tingting, Director of MSM Sponsorship Department of the Community Development Division said: “For these disadvantaged children, losing the nutritious free school lunch is equivalent to having no dinner, because they used to pack lunch home for dinner.”

Emergency Relief Funds for vulnerable families who are not eligible for the government bailout 4.0 package. The amount of subsidy will be evaluated by MSM social workers according to the actual family situation, and a one-time subsidy USD$179~536 will be provided.

The suspension of classes and work has had a huge impact on single-parent families, and grandparenting families. In Kaohsiung, an immigrant single mother with two children, one 13 years old and another just 5, are having difficulty because of the epidemic. The single mother used to do home cleaning for a living, but her job has been drastically impacted by the pandemic; in addition, she needs to take care of the two underage children at home because of the school closure, so she is not able to go out to earn a living. MSM southern service center helped her to apply for Children’s Suspended Meals and the Emergency Relief Fund, which turned her away from thoughts of suicide.

MSM immediately launched COVID-19 Relief Fund in Taiwan once the outbreak started, providing urgent assistance to vulnerable families and children affected by the epidemic and unable to apply for the Taiwan government’s bailout 4.0 policy for special reasons. MSM invites you to be the strongest support for disadvantaged families in Taiwan! Support now http://bit.ly/MSM_TW_COVID19

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