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About CTK Foundation
Life is priceless. The world is filled with love.
Chou Ta-Kuan Cultural and Educational Foundation

      Chou Ta-Kuan Cultural and Educational Foundation was established in 1997, founded by Chou Ta-Kuan’s parents Chou Chin-Hua and Guo Ying-Lan, friends including Principal Chao Cui-hui of Canadian Chinese Language School, Executive Director Ms. Liebermann of the Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Foundation U.S.A, President Dr. Gerlind Bode couple of the Germany Leukemia Association, Chairman Iwata of the Children’s Cancer Association of Japan and many other people with kind heart from home and abroad to fulfill the final wish of cancer-fighting poet Chou Ta-Kuan, for the promotion of: be nice to yourself--fervently love your life; be nice to others--honor others’ lives; be nice to the earth--safeguard the earth’s life.

      For the past ten years, with the most sincerity, most thrifty way and sustaining action, we have proceeded with the Global Love of Lives series public benefit activities by providing diversified services to the public through interviews, selections, camping teams, seminars, campaigns, exchanges, consultation and discussion. An emphasis on happy living is particularly promoted together with emphasizing the encouragement from mental challenged people, cancer children, people with rare diseases and those life-struggling people from home and abroad to show us the endless potential in life. Till now, volunteers participating in the Global Love of Lives and Happy Living series public benefic activities of this foundation had already served more than 299,367 people. We operate as a small but capable enterprise with a humane operation model. We consolidate domestic and overseas resources to turn nothing into something and under the coherence of love and wisdom we have been able to effectively achieve our mission and goal of promoting the Global Love of Lives and Happy Living series public benefit activities.
      Ever since the spring of that year when my right foot had a tumor,
      We went to plant trees every day-- 
      We planted the tree of health in hospital,
      We planted the tree of love in church,
      We planted the tree of hope in school,
      One day,
      We became trees ourselves to be planted,
      To be planted generation after generation…
      To grow up and become a forest of health,
      To grow up and become a forest of love,
      To grow up and become a forest of hope.
                                                ----Chou Ta-Kuan’s poem, “Planting Trees”
 
 
      1. To spread seeds--Turn nothing into something

      Little anti-cancer poet Chou Ta-Kuan was gone! A ten-year old, it’s the age of weaving dreams. He left in peace, but his life was too short. So short that our heart was broken and wouldn’t let go! Though it must be an overstatement to talk about the immortality of Ta-Kuan, the everlasting values of his persistent vitality, touching poems and pure mind left behind him are definitely there with the love you gave him.
      Especially, Ta-Kuan’s clear eyes not only saw through the endless greed of the monster of illness on human body and accepted the ordeal, but also presented himself as a witness, a symbol, a section in the history before numerous healthy adults and children that no matter what predicament our life might bump into, we, being alive, should have the courage to say no to death despite how cold-blooded the monster of illness or how brutal the pain in body might be. We must be brave to continue our journey like his courage shown in the “I Still Have One Leg”. We do hope that his appearance allows us to understand more about loving each other and caring for children’s world.
      In order to take care of more children similar to Ta-Kuan, we had donated Ta-Kuan’s savings of NT$495,000 as the first fund, and put together every penny of the revenue from home and abroad for purchasing his final works, “I Still Have One Leg” (Yuan-Liou), “Ta-Kuan-- Voice from a Cancer Child” (Yuan-Liou) and stories about Ta-Kuan, “The Light of Life-- Chou Ta-Kuan” (Yuan-Liou), “Story of Ta-Kuan-- The Wish of a Little Star” (Cosmax), and the copyright income of these four life books to establish the “Chou Ta-Kuan Cultural and Educational Foundation”. We sincerely appreciated our friends who had helped us to go through this and so many other anonymous citizens. Thank you!
      “Ta-Kuan is still here”-- just because the world is filled with love.
      There are trials and hardships in the course of life. We have established “Loving Daddy”, “Loving Mommy” Severe Illness Family Support Group to send love to families and to wherever needed.
      The monster of illness smiles ambiguously to life. We have established “Loving Brother”, “Loving Sister” Severe Illness Children’s Support Group to send love to hospitals and schools.
      The living Ta-Kuan opens up a window of sun. We meet and chat whole-heartedly outside the window of sun and in the poems. Why do we care about the life and death tug of war? Why do we care about the ticking countdown of the fate? Even with only one leg, Ta-Kuan wanted to stand on the earth forever, let alone we have two legs!
      When you open up the books of Ta-Kuan and when you join activities of this foundation, you have already extended his life, and have also extended the life of your own.
 
      2. To grow roots-- Grow deep roots

      Life is impermanent, with the cycle of birth, old age, illness and death. We continue to promote “Hospital Happy Growth Camp series public benefit activities” to bring music and laughter to severe illness wards in different places.
      Life growth and life-long learning. We organize “Life University” growth programs to hold a series of courses about life growth and happy living for people to increase their life quality, to pour wisdom into their lives, to lead a decent life and embrace a happy living.
      With love in life, there will be no obstacles in living. Each year we hold the “Love of Lives Art Show” to encourage physically challenged people to say goodbye to their dismal through painting brushes, musical instruments and carving knifes and head toward hope.
 
      3. To sprout-- innovation and rebirth

      Life has no limitation. Love has no boundary. We initiated to set the date of May 25 (euphony: I love I) each year as the “Global Love of Lives Day” to promote “be nice to yourself--fervently love your life; be nice to others--honor others’ lives; be nice to the earth--safeguard the earth’s life”, and had received responses from public benefit groups in many countries including Germany, United States, Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, Canada and Panama.
      Life is priceless. Emulate those better than oneself. We create the “Fervent Global Love of Lives Medal” to publicly praise those institutes, groups or any individual that have outstanding achievements or contributions such as bravery, love, endeavor in the scope of Global Love of Lives.
 
      4. To irrigate--To continue the task

      To be contented with a happy living. Each year we hold a series of outdoor activities through the “Hand in Hand—Severe Illness Children’s Life Travel” program to encourage severely ill children and their families to go outdoors and embrace the blue sky, big ocean and mountains.
      Life takes off and everything is OK. We hold a series of “Take off Love Campaign” each year with the publication of four life books including Chou Ta-Kuan’s posthumous work “I Still Have One Leg” in Japanese edition, Hong Kong and Macao edition, English, French, Germany, Korean, Spanish and Russian editions to spread the stories to each corner of the world of how Chou Ta-Kuan fervently loved lives, honored lives and led a happy living. The campaign also shows care for severely ill children in each country, promotes Taiwan’s humanitarian concern and searches back the great love of human race.
      5. To bloom-- To carry forward to the future

      Life music is the teacher of heart. We hold the “Second Hand Instruments Donation to Play the Music of Hope Again” campaign to equip thousands of disaster affected and remote schools with music and would continue to promote this campaign to further donate instruments to underdeveloped countries and hope people in the international transportation industry would respond by offering delivery services.
      Life seedling is the hope of human race. We intend to set up a “Love Children’s Home” to provide clinical mental consultation, bereavement support, game therapy, cancer and rare diseases related information, hold regular entertaining activities or “Children’s Life Dialogue” courses to arrange dialogues between severely ill children and healthy children, and set up “Love Suite” to better take care of severely ill children living in remote areas and offer them a warm home.
      Life literature is praised for thousands of years. Each year we hold the “Fervent Global Love of Lives Literary Composition Award” to promote the spirit of loving lives and encourage people to fulfill themselves in the unlimited field of encouraging literature.
      Life doctor is the rebirth of Huatuo. Each year we hold the “Global Chinese Love Doctors Scholarship Award” to assist doctors in doing researches in the field of cancer and rare diseases and further to promote the establishment of a specialized hospital for severely ill children. The hospital and its devices can be shaped like a fairy world of Disneyland to reduce children’s fear and rejection and maintain their dignity when seeking treatment so that a more humane, more children-oriented treatment process can be achieved that covers consultation, family doctor, out-patient visit, examination, treatment, nursing care, surgery, hospitalization, school attending, teaching and research, hospice care, etc.
      Mutual help in life is to help others like helping ourselves. In order to save endangered species, we set up a permanent “Earth Life Research Matching Center”. We start from protecting and studying Taiwan black bear and this is our first step of safeguarding the lives on earth.
      Thus, all these years this foundation has been on the track of “love” by spreading seeds, growing roots, sprouting, irrigating and blooming. We see our responsibilities through others’ needs and we also see the limitation and endlessness in life. We cannot decide the length of life, but we can decide its richness. The descriptions above showed you how this foundation was created and what had been through our minds. We have the honor of receiving the third National Public Benefit Award and the award of promoting social education granted by the Ministry of Education. We wish to share all honors with you and we shall continue to work and fight together.