The world of Tzu Chi October 2020 (Vol.127)

07 TZU CHI 127 long-term phase, with plans to construct Great Love Villages and reconstruct 23 schools. Tzu Chi has been providing aid to the poor and sick in South Africa for more than 20 years. Volunteers have extended aid to the north, including Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and four other countries, fostering and grooming local volunteers to become dedicated forces for charity missions. Mozambican Dino Foi and his Taiwanese wife, Denise Tsai, were inspired to volunteer following a visit to the Kaohsiung Tzu-Chi Jing Si Hall in Taiwan, in 2012. The couple contacted Michael Pan, a Tzu Chi veteran in South Africa, and attended the training for volunteers. With guidance and companionship from Tzu Chi volunteers in Durban, South Africa, Denise participated in home visits at Maxaquene community in Mozambique. She later attended the Tzu Chi’s Entrepreneurs’ Camp in Taiwan, and was so deeply moved that she made a vow to Master Cheng Yen to be the first Tzu Chi’s “seed” in Mozambique. To-date, Denise and her husband are actively committed to helping the needy. They have successfully roped in more than 3,000 local volunteers. Master Cheng Yen praised the African volunteers for training local volunteerswho had even spread compassions across the borders in spite of their hardships. Their perseverance in spiritual cultivation and in purifying the mind manifested in the spirit of the Bodhisattvas as described in the Lotus Sutra , who entered the Saha World, which was filled with turbidity, to transform all sentient beings, without fear. The 2019 Cyclone Idai survivors erected their own thatch houses as their temporary shelter tents were worn and torn after a year. [Photograph by Long Karmen] 1 There is discrepancy in the calculation of the total number of countries by the African Unions and the United Nations. The estimated number falls between 55 – 57 countries in total. Transforming Africa With Love