Their efforts have proved successful. Upwards of 15,000 undernourished people, both old and young, in the five flooded counties now receive 300 c.c. milk each at scheduled hours every day. A new diet habit is thus being formed in those Asian villages.
Earlier, the Canadian government donated a million pounds of non-fat milk powder to Taiwan through UNICEF for the people in the flooded areas. The milk, when the first consignment was distributed, was unfamiliar to these unhappy people. Intestinal troubles (mistakenly) attributed to it put it in danger of being totally rejected.
What fate did the gift encounter? The flood victims received the food with genuine gratitude at first, but as soon as they thought themselves upset by it, they quickly sold it to the market or fed it to their livestock. For a certain period of time the skimmed milk powder was booming the black market all over the island. Animals and fowls of well-off people were pleased to be offered a new, better feed.
Then the Sino-American Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction (JCRR) approached social service stations on Central Taiwan one after another. JCRR's nutrition experts tried, with the assistance of station staff, to instruct people in the proper use of the protein-rich food.
The failure in milk powder distribution to the flood victims was found to be the people's lack of a correct recipe and their ignorance of its food value.
Education thus became a must, they decided, in paving the way for carrying out their project. Training classes were conducted by JCRR specialists for woman officials of the five social service stations. These trained women then passed the knowledge of the new food to the people and in the meantime demonstrated the correct way of mixing it.
By December 1959, a total of 50 milk feeding stations had been successively set up in townships most seriously affected by the August flood. A quarter of a million pounds of the milk powder was set aside for this particular purpose. JCRR and the Provincial Social Affairs Department jointly provided technical assistance as well as feeding equipment and facilities.
One of the 50 milk feeding stations set up in central and southern Taiwan following the August 1959 flood. (File photo)
Today, these stations, quartered in rented rooms, public halls or Buddhist temples, serve the people at regular hours every day--usually an hour after the breakfast or lunch time. People are required to produce their "feeding cards" before they get their share of milk. The milk is served at each station by a well-trained, white-uniformed young woman. A long queue is formed punctually every day and at the end an assistant helps register the "customers" so that reports can be made every three months.
The milk-serving young woman has to go through a complete procedure from mixing and serving the milk to cleansing vessels and pots. More often than not she is a volunteer with a regular job, and draws but petty cash payment from the station for her service.
Hundreds of people's health now depends on her meticulous work. Always arriving at the station an hour before the milk-serving time, she draws water from a nearby well and begins to boil it on a stove of JCRR improved design. Then all the containers which are kept in a cupboard are sterilized again with highly concentrated chlorinated water although they have been cleansed after use on the previous day.
Mixing the non-fat milk powder is a painstaking job. Since most of the people did get intestinal troubles from the ill-prepared milk, she has to make thinner milk with less powder for new comers but gradually increases it when she finds them used to it later.
Posters arc displayed at the station to show how a regular drinker of non-fat milk will benefit. Pictures indicate that a cup of 300 c.c. non-fat milk gives a person what he acquires from two eggs, and that a case of 4.5 lb. of such powder contains similar nutriment to 120 eggs or 10 catties of ham.
This publicity work, together with a pre-feeding education, is so convincing that few people will give up their newly-acquired food habit even though they live miles away. Now each of the 50 stations serves an average of 300 undernourished people of nearby villages.
In Changhua county alone, some 9,000 people have benefited from the feeding project.
Young women mixing the protein-rich milk powder. (File photo)
A striking example is given by a 70-year old woman, with a small shop in Changhua, whose blurring eyesight has become "crystal" clear, as she herself described it, due to constant drinking of non-fat milk. "No eyewater is so effective as this," she said, pointing to the cup in her hand. At present, four of her 20-member, three-generation family have registered with a nearby feeding station and are expecting milk to do wonders for them. Actually, gaining an average of one to two kilograms of weight by adults who drink 300 c.c. a day was reported in the first six months.
The feeding station is different from a milk bar where people who pay are served, and it does not resemble a relief station offering free food to anyone present. It helps only undernourished children, old folks and pregnant women who cannot afford to buy better food.
In spite of the satisfactory result, each station, presently holds a monthly "seminar" to teach villagers to further utilize the relief milk powder. A course on nutrition also is given. Housewives in the flood areas are now able to make various kinds of refreshments with the donated material. People not able to go to the stations may enjoy the nutritious food at home as well.
The milk-feeding work is not fading out in spite of the quick progress of rehabilitation work in the flooded areas. Its promising results and another big typhoon in the fall of 1960 justified its prolonged existence and even expansion of its scope.
The milk-feeding idea has also been transmitted to communities in other parts of the island. In most of the 57 model villages which have been carrying on their improved living environment and better production work for several years, 23 similar stations have been set up since last April to take care of 4,800 persons in need of better food. This service, under the supervision of health centers or health stations, has been extended further to nurseries.
Meanwhile, 52 of Taiwan's 380 health stations are ready to set up their own milk-feeding stations. The Provincial Health Department, convinced that dispensing the prepared milk is better than distributing milk powder, has instructed all health centers and health stations to follow suit.
Recently, the Commission on Economic Reconstruction of Taiwan, a civic organization, conducted a demonstration in Changhua for further expanding the feeding project. To support the gigantic feeding work in Taiwan, UNICEF has agreed to provide non-fat milk powder sufficient for feeding some 40,000 people all the year round.