President Ma Ying-jeou on the morning of December 5 attended the annual gathering of the Youth Volunteer Service for Regional Peace to personally present awards for excellence in the areas of environmental service and international service. The president encouraged the volunteers to continue to help others and challenge themselves, thereby making a contribution to the nation and society.
The president remarked that the Youth Volunteer Service for Regional Peace was an idea that he advocated three years ago in his campaign platform while running for the presidency. President Ma explained that in the 1960s, US President John F. Kennedy founded the Peace Corps, which recruited countless numbers of American youth to provide service in countries around the world in need. The Peace Corps, he said, has had a global impact.
President Ma recalled that he was invited to visit the United States during his third year in university. While at the University of Hawaii he saw students using computer modeling to support efforts in India to achieve a green revolution and increase grain output. He admired the work and wondered whether Taiwan could one day engage in similar international aid. The president commented that Taiwan has become a free, democratic, prosperous, and highly educated nation, and over the years it has increasingly been able to provide overseas assistance. Volunteerism, he added, is gaining popularity here all the time.
The president noted that during the ROC National Day celebrations on October 10 this year he stated that the ROC is presently playing four roles in the international community—peacemaker, provider of humanitarian aid, promoter of cultural ties, and creator of new technologies and business opportunities—and that as long as the government and the public work together, Taiwan will be able to increasingly demonstrate its soft power and make a contribution to the international community. In his words, "when a nation is respected, its people will have dignity."