The county magistrate always gives more concerns to the elderly people who contributed to the nation and the society and the abandoned children and elders who are not taken care of. Since the appointment, the county magistrate has urged to see social welfare services as an important issue to be addressed with great attention by both the government and the private sector at all levels. The purpose of establishing “Datong Homes” is therefore to provide homes and care to children who have no parents and the abandoned elders living in desperate conditions to make our society a world of Datong where “the old are accommodated and cared for until death and the children are nourished and educated”. We also hope to realize in the region the ideal of the World of Great Harmony outlined in the chapter of Li-Yun-Da-Tong in the Record of Rites by Confucius and to carry out Dr. Sun Yat-Sen’s plan of establishing the nation as one great commonwealth.
Social welfare is a world trend today. Kinmen County is a small island with scarce resources, infertile land and insufficient food, and these conditions have pushed the majority of youth to leave home and work abroad and the family structure thus changed. The issue of population aging has also become more serious in recent years due to medical advancement and improved public health. At the present, the proportion of old people over 65 has already exceeded 12.73% in the county (and 8.5% for Taiwan currently). The county magistrate has taken various social welfare measures continually since his appointment to get prepared for the coming of an aging society and with goals to achieve a stable social development, to care for the minority group, to safeguard the welfare of the residents and to maintain sustainable development for the county.
It has been more than 30 years since the construction of the original homes and there are cracks in all the main building structure. In order to maintain a safe and comfort living home for the old and the children, the county magistrate has strived to obtain a subsidy from the Ministry of the Interior and completed the construction of two new buildings (Building No. A and B) in 1991 to accommodate the children, and in 1995 the magistrate obtained another subsidy of more than NT$100 million from the Ministry of the Interior to reconstruct the old buildings into 6 new modern two-story homes for the elders with a capacity to accommodate 120 old people, either self-paid or government-paid. In 1997, the county magistrate further obtained more than NT$36 million from the Ministry of the Interior to proceed with the reconstruction of the old buildings of the children’s homes.
The site area of the new elderly home was 7784 sq. m. in total, and the total construction cost was quoted NT$112.235 million, of which NT$106.4 million was obtained from the Ministry of the Interior and NT$5.835 million being the county’s match fund. The construction started on Dec 31st 1995 and the new homes started operation on Oct 30th 1997.
The interior decoration of the elderly home is new and fresh looking, and entirely designed to fulfill the needs of the old people. There are 30 twin suites in the government-paid dormitory, 4 twin rooms, 3 six-person rooms and 2 three-person rooms in the nursing-care area, a recreation center and a Buddha hall in the administration building, allowing us to accommodate 120 elders in total. The rooms are furnished with bedside lamps, bedstand, small tea tables, single beds, room chairs, service calling systems, table sets with multi functions, closets and others. There are also public facilities including a common room with television, couches and magazines, a fitness center with massage chairs, running and cycling machines and vibrators, a rehabilitation room with walkers, wheelchairs, pull exercisers and parallel bars, and other facilities such as the health paths and gateball courts for leisure.
The overall site area of the children’s home is 5303 sq. m. where the built-up area is 2393 sq. m.. The new home looks fantastic with the other two existing buildings, and inside facilities include10 modernized family style bedrooms to accommodate 60 children, a study room, a computer room, a fitness center, a Karaoke room, a health center, an activity center, a security room and an office, staff dormitory and more to bring a better and warmer living environment to our home children so they can focus more efforts on study and grow up happily. An open playground is also built up to provide both our children and the other children in the surrounding communities a place to play and have fun together. Connecting our home children with the outside communities will prevent psychological problems of our children and enable them to grow up with a sound personality, and at the same time to create a lively atmosphere in the surrounding communities.
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