LOVE MISSION. Volunteers of the Tzu Chi Foundation hand over relief items to typhoon survivors in Tacloban City. The group has so far helped more than 28,000 city residents. CONTIBUTED PHOTO Beyond just rebuilding villages destroyed by Super Typhoon Yolanda, one organization has been helping survivors heal from within, repairing the deep wounds of grief and loss by living up to its name: Tzu Chi, Chinese for “compassionate relief.” The Tzu Chi Foundation, an international humanitarian nonprofit group established in Taiwan in 1966, has been quietly working on the ground across devastated Leyte, on a mission to revive a “circulation of love” in places that hope may have momentarily abandoned. Led by its Philippine branch, Tzu Chi, an organization that commands a 10-million strong membership across 47 countries, has brought relief to some 60,000 families across the disaster zone, initiating cash-for-work programs in the worst-hit villages and installing prefabricated schools and houses for the displaced. In the words of its founder, globally renowned Buddhist nun and Ramon Magsaysay laureate Dharma Master Cheng Yen, Tzu Chi’s work is one of giving survivors the confidence that they could begin again: That is, to “uplift their body and spirit with love and motivate them to take action to rebuild their own lives.” “Our philosophy is that the suffering of others is like our own suffering. That is the teaching of our founder. When we help others, we must do it with a pure heart, and we must give without expecting anything in return Read More …
