Cathay Charity Foundation KITURU Dream Fulfillment Project

Helping the Ocarina Team of Haiduan Elementary School in Taitung with an Art Tour

(Taiwan Business News) The Cathay Charity Foundation launched the "Cathay KITURU Dream Fulfillment Project" this year, successively helping Shilin and Meiyuan Elementary Schools in Miaoli, Jibeishua in Tainan and Yuying Elementary School in Pingtung fulfill their dreams. This year it will make the dreams of eight remote elementary schools come true, and a results presentation will be held in June to witness the touching stories of children pursuing their dreams.

Haiduan Elementary School in Haiduan Township, Taitung County is a campus where diverse ethnic groups come together. Its students include Minnan people from the plains and Hakka people, as well as two tribes of eastern Taiwan, the Amis and the Bunun. Even with limited resources, these children from the back mountains have never given up their learning opportunities. They share a common interest - the ocarina - and hope that by practicing the ocarina diligently, they can use beautiful ocarina performances as an opportunity to visit places across Taiwan and open their horizons.

The ocarina is small and versatile in appearance, has a beautiful tone and is easy to carry. Its fingering is simple and easy to learn. Through hiring professional art teachers to teach the children ocarina practice during winter vacation and on holidays and after school, Haiduan Elementary School in Taitung cultivates their aesthetic ability and sense of pitch, and plans a "Diligence Makes Up for Weakness, Beauty Power Passbook" program for the children. Through complete training, set songs to play as passbook assessments. As long as they pass the review assessment, they can store the dream-fulfilling energy of beauty power. The children can also review their own beauty power passbooks, leaving beautiful memories of the process of working so hard in practice during their growth.

Director of Academic Affairs Guo Huizhen said that learning resources in eastern Taiwan are scarce, and we are constantly thinking about any possibility of cultivating diverse abilities in children from the back mountains. By chance, they came into contact with the ocarina. In order to keep them from falling behind children of the same age because of a lack of resources, under the teachers' careful guidance, the students went from knowing nothing about music to voluntarily and carefully exploring the tricks of playing the ocarina and cultivating sensitivity to music. Now they can easily play wonderful pieces and dance to the music. These bits of growth and change have also encouraged educators and children to dream bravely, hoping to use this talent to visit places across Taiwan, hold music trips with the Cathay Dream Fulfillment Fund, and open their horizons.

Cathay Charity Foundation Secretary-General Gong Zhirong, who specially visited Haiduan Elementary School in person, said that dreams all begin with a determination. These children jointly carry the determination to practice hard, and their goal is to achieve the music tour of their dreams. He also hopes they can cultivate self-confidence through the ocarina and use this priceless artistic asset to fulfill more dreams.