In Need of Help

[Jeremy]

Before I start this, I want you all to know that I am a person who would not normally do something like this unless it was very important to me.

I have a middle-aged friend named Garry who lives near Taipei, Taiwan. He has been a friend of mine for 7 years. He is unemployed. His wife, who is handicapped, is employed with the local college.

They have very little money or food. They have been eating nothing but instant noodles for the past 2 months because they literally cannot afford anything better.

They have spent thousands of TWD (Taiwan New Dollars) in attempts to return to his home country of Australia. They will allow him to return but not his wife as she is Taiwanese and they would need to show proof of a sponsor in Australia that would be financially capable of providing for her medical expenses. As they have no such sponsor, she would only be granted a three month tourist VISA. Once that expires, they would send her back to Taiwan. He will not allow that. Even if they could both go back to Australia, they cannot now due to a lack of money.

About two years ago they sold everything because they were (at the time) convinced they would both be leaving Taiwan permanently. They sold their car for 10% of its original value. They also sold most of their furniture including their bed.

The problem is that in on July 11, Garry and his wife will be unable to pay their rent and will be forced out into the streets by their landlord.

He will not allow this to happen to his wife due her health conditions. They will be forced to do what Taiwan considers the "honorable thing" and end their lives together and end their struggle.

They cannot live on the streets as there are no shelters for the homeless in Taiwan.

Quotes from Garry during our conversation on 6/29:

...there are no welfare agencies & such .. no churches having ah .. support facilities for the needy .. what the person may find is one or two women's groups, or a child abuse ah .. orgainization...

...my wife's been handicapped at least ninety percent of her life (since age 12 that I know of) & even for her, there is no handicapped support group or facilities here .. none at all.

Even the child abuse thing .. if a kid runs away from home due to violence or just bad parenting or whatever .. there are three known facilities in all of Taiwan .. a population of over twenty two million people .. three facilities .. each capable of holding between fifty to a hundred kids each .. which caters for less than one percent of all child abuse cases in this country.

And two of those centres are less than ten years old .. one only three years old.

And there are actually NO ah, facilities, features .. anything at all re support for any group or individual .. sponsored or funded by the government .. none at all.

Same, or actually worse in China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, a few other countries .. hence what we deem the 'so strong family unity' so apparent in Asian cultures.

There's no Salvation Army, Red Cross & such .. oh there are such .. but they are specifically for assistance in natural disasters .. they do not cater to individual needs at all.

Hence, no shelters as such.

Here's a quote from earlier that day where I told Garry that my wife said she didn't believe this was all true, real, legit:

Honestly .. I really don't know or remember anyone ever calling me a liar before .. I usually put everything on the table so fast .. & have no enemies or untrusting people in my life that I'm aware of .. at all.

Some of you may be wondering what will happen the month after next, will my bleeding heart come back to MSFN asking for more? No, and I will tell you why.

Their neighbor who lives 1 floor beneath them is Chinese and has a chain of taxi cabs. Garry has a plan for using and improving the models of HHO Generators that you see videos on YouTube of people talking about increasing their Miles-Per-Gallon (MPG) by supplementing via the air intake on their vehicles. He has been corresponding with a man from this site who has copyrighted and patented a unique design. Although the man has patented it, he offers an E-Book on how to construct the design for personal use only. Garry, however, intends to make several modifications to it (enough to be infringing on the copyright or violating the patent) and attract the attention of investors in Taiwan to begin generating and thus sustaining income. He is hellbent on this.

Those of you that know me enough (Zxian, PuntoMX, Tarun) who I have already told and asked for help know this is real.

My goal is to reach 20500 TWD which is $689 CAD / $676 USD).

So far I have $100 with a promise of $40 from Martin L and $50 from a friend. That's $190.

As of right now that's $500 left that I need. 20 people paying $25 each would cover that. If some are able to manage $50 then that is stellar.

On Wednesday I am going to setup a means of money transfer via PayPal.

This goes out to anyone on MSFN, and the family, friends and neighbors of those of you on MSFN, if you can help out at all financially, please let me know either in this topic or via PM.

Thank you.

Edited July 1, 2008 by Jeremy

[Martin L]

if you have paypal i can help ya out a bit... contact me with pm

[Jeremy]

Thank you very much Martin L. I PMed you.

As of right now, I have $100 / $690.

Edited July 1, 2008 by Jeremy

[Jeremy]

I have added more to my opening post.

[Jeremy]

Some numbers have changed since last night. They are the final numbers now. Sorry if they caused confusion initially.

[Jeremy]

I would just like to update and say that following Martin L's contribution, we have managed to raise the necessary funds and my friend will be okay!

Thank you very much to those who have supported in this cause. We greatly appreciate it.

Take care,

Jeremy