Former President Ma Ying-jeou on Sunday attended a banquet in honor of Cité publishing house’s “seashore academies” for children in rural areas, and those who make the program possible.
Ten years ago the Cité Culture and Arts Foundation set up three schools in resource-deprived coastal areas of Yunlin and Chiayi Counties, western Taiwan. Among other things, the schools provide children in need with reading help via video conferencing. Today, the foundation runs ten such centers, in the hopes of giving rural children a leg up.
At the banquet on Sunday, former President Ma Ying-jeou said that many children in rural areas have talent and ability, but they lack the resources available to children in other areas. He said that foundations like Cité can help give those children a boost.
Ma said that Taiwan is rich in resources, but the distribution of those resources is unequal. In lauding the efforts of the “seashore academies”, he quoted the Irish poet William Butler Yeats, who said that “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”