Mission of Charity

Responding to the cries of the suffering with Great Love

Providing direct aid to those in need

Charity is the foundation of Tzu Chi’s Missions. In 1966, the year after Taiwan experienced 20 years of poverty and received 15 years of US aid after the Second World War, Dharma Master Shih Cheng Yen founded Tzu Chi from scratch in Hualien, a town located in the impoverished and remote east coast of Taiwan. Together with her monastic disciples and a group of housewives, she laid the groundwork for helping the poor and relieving suffering.

In the early days, Master Cheng Yen personally led Tzu Chi volunteers into the dark corners of society. During the course of visiting the homes of the impoverished, they witnessed the suffering and hardships of the sick and the poor and provided them with empathetic care and much-needed aid. Being the first to reach out to the needy and committed to helping them until the end, Tzu Chi volunteers accompany and care for the care recipients until they become independent or until the end of their life. Such spirit of compassionate Great Love has become the hallmark of Tzu Chi’s Mission of Charity.

When Tzu Chi reached the shore of Singapore, it was registered as Tzu-Chi Foundation (Singapore). The Foundation has since developed and established a number of charitable programmes in multi-racial Singapore to address the most pressing societal needs. These programmes serve to fill in the gaps where existing government resources may be lacking and meet the needs of those who are marginalised in society, regardless of their race, language or religion.

Since 1987, Tzu Chi has been providing emergency assistance and long-term aid to needy households. During which, our volunteers have been making regular visits to nursing homes to give care and emotional support to the sick and lonely elderly. In addition, the Foundation also forged partnerships with public institutions, such as schools, hospitals, and social service agencies to serve the needs of referral cases.

The changing times have brought about new challenges to Tzu Chi’s charity work, spurring the need for the Foundation to keep a close pulse on evolving societal needs and to recognise hidden needs in the dark recesses of society. In 1998, we were the very few social service agencies that provided subsidies for AIDS medications and mobilised our volunteers to visit them regularly to offer emotional care and support. The subsidy for AIDS medication continued until January 2021 when it ceased due to the dwindling of such demand. From 1998 to 2021, the programme benefitted 1739 AIDS patients.

The effects of the global financial crisis landed on Singapore's shores in 2008, pushing many families over the edge into dire financial straits. In the following year, Tzu Chi set up the Seeds of Hope Financial Assistance Scheme to provide meal and transportation allowances to students from low-income families. Over the years, the assistance scheme has evolved to meet the changing demands of families with school-going children.

Upholding its relief principles of timeliness, directness, priority, and respect, the various types of help are offered in accordance with the specific needs of each household and can be categorised into Living Assistance, Medical Assistance and Educational Assistance.

Inspiring the rich to help the poor and guiding the poor to do good in return

The works of Tzu Chi’s Mission of Charity involve ongoing needs assessment, providing the required assistance, and ensuring long-term care for its care recipients. It is a rigorous process comprising an initial visit to assess the needs of the potential care recipient, a follow-up meeting to discuss each new case, and monthly care visits to the homes of confirmed care recipients by our volunteers.

Besides making regular home visits, our volunteers also organise festive celebrations and invite care recipients and their family members to participate in the events. By providing care from the heart, we hope to improve the quality of life of our care recipients and help them get their lives back on track.

Our home visit volunteers, who are spread island-wide in every neighbourhood, are committed to Master Cheng Yen’s ideal of “equal compassion for all”. They prepare meals and distribute aid supplies to households and individuals in need, and help with cleaning up, repairing, and renovating homes, allowing the latter to feel the love and warmth of family. Touched by their loving and sincere efforts, many care recipients gradually opened up their hearts and built trusting relationships with the volunteers. Under the inspired guidance of the home visit teams, many of our care recipients have come to realise that true wealth comes from giving, and are happy to pay it forward to help others in need.

Stories of Love and Compassion

Charity Schemes

Treating the needy and suffering as family and reaching out to them with compassion

Compassion and Wisdom in Action

Tzu Chi’s long-term mode of assistance has evolved with the advancement of society to become more diversified, allowing for flexibility in rendering help while ensuring effectiveness. It comprises assistance for living expenses, medical assistance, education grants, regular care visits, etc. The various types of assistance are provided in accordance with each household’s unique needs, which are determined based on quarterly needs assessments and monthly visits conducted by volunteers. This ensures a deep understanding of the needs of each care recipient, and the amount of aid given will be adjusted to meet these needs or terminated if the needs have been met by other sources.

Spiritual counselling and emotional care are the focus of the home visits. Each home visit team strives to follow Master Cheng Yen’s teaching on the importance of exercising both compassion and wisdom. The home visits are conducted by volunteers who have received the required basic training. With enthusiasm to help those in need, they provide emotional care as well as patient guidance to care recipients.

Some of the care beneficiaries are impoverished and sick, living a life of hardship and despair, alienated from friends and kin alike. Through the persistent effort of the home visit teams to establish rapport with them, they are finally able to let down their guards and allow the volunteers to clean up their cluttered homes, bathe them, give them haircuts, and even help them seek medical help, etc. Inspired and touched by the volunteers’ loving efforts, many care recipients are able to settle down despite their humble circumstances, develop gratitude and contentment, and further give of themselves to help others in need.

Tzu Chi’s aid relief can be categorised into Living Assistance, Medical Assistance and Educational Assistance and each of them is divided into primary and secondary assistance schemes.

The primary assistance scheme is set up to meet basic needs and relieve poverty, and it is open to the public. Whereas the secondary assistance scheme is only available for Tzu Chi’s existing care recipients to provide more holistic care and support to meet the diverse needs of different households. The aim of the scheme is to improve the overall quality of life of the care recipients and their family. Application is made through home visit volunteers who visit the care recipients monthly.

Primary Assistance Schemes:
Secondary Assistance Schemes:

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