FFP’s CEO and Executive Director meet with Taiwan’s President to discuss rice donations for Haiti

COCONUT CREEK, Fla. (March 26, 2009) – Food For The Poor’s CEO and executive director made the 22-hour trip this month to meet with Taiwan’s president to discuss Taiwan’s continued humanitarian aid to Third World countries.

Robin Mahfood, Food For The Poor’s CEO/President, asked President Ma Ying-jeou to continue Taiwan’s support in providing joint assistance to Haiti. Specific initiatives include in-country production of food, fish, livestock breeding, and education, to help improve living conditions in Haiti.

For three years, Taiwan has aided the people of Haiti with generous donations of rice. Taiwan has donated more than 14,000 tons of rice to Food For The Poor from 2007 to 2008. This generous donation fed hundreds of thousands of school children and adults in the most destitute areas of the country.

A string of typhoons last year caused Taiwan to restructure its program for donating grain to Haiti because of concerns over Taiwan’s domestic rice reserves. Taiwan has committed to donating up to 200 tons of rice on a case-by-case basis each time Food For The Poor requests grain for Haiti.

Taiwan cooperates with Food For The Poor in agriculture, aquaculture and animal husbandry projects in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua. The Taiwanese will begin working with Food For The Poor to outfit schools and orphanages with computer workstations and technicians. Additionally, Taiwan’s government will provide a tilapia expert in Haiti to increase the number of tilapia ponds in country. Tilapia ponds both eliminate hunger and provide an entire village with a sustainable source of food and income.

Food For The Poor, the largest international relief and development organization in the nation, does much more than feed millions of hungry poor in 17 countries of the Caribbean and Latin America. We provide emergency relief assistance, clean water, medicines, educational materials, homes, support for orphans and the aged, skills training and micro-enterprise development assistance, with more than 96 percent of all donations going directly to programs that help the poor. For more information please visit, www.foodforthepoor.org

Contact:
Jennifer Leigh Oates
Public Relations Coordinator
(954) 427-2222 x 6054
[email protected]