Campuses doing good together
Around Mother’s Day last year, Professor Li Yan-ru of Aletheia University led students on a trip into the mountains of Taoyuan County. The team helped local indigenous people to pick contract-grown fruit and turn it into wine. The process of making wine from fresh peaches takes about three months. “The peaches of Fuxing Township bruise easily, so many delivery services refuse to ship them.” Li and his students braved the elements, rolling up their sleeves and standing side by side with the growers, employing processing techniques developed at Aletheia to help solve the farmers’ problems with logistics, production and sales. “Furthermore, we leveraged the power of the alumni of 108 universities and colleges to jointly carry out ‘goodwill marketing’ of fresh ‘May peaches’ from Fuxing. Educational institutions represent a community with substantial purchasing power, and the peaches sold very well.”
There are many moving stories like this involving students working in the public interest or on behalf of disadvantaged groups. Such experiences show the students that they are capable of making a difference, and also provide a way for colleges and universities to meet their social responsibilities.
“College students and faculty are passionate and especially caring.” Every time they put on a sales bazaar or a charity sale, the Dihua Street store is bustling. University employees and alumni have many connections, creating a large network of potential buyers. Huang laughs as he explains that whenever he mentions a sale to students in his executive MBA class, the business owners shoot up their hands, often placing orders for 300 or even 500 items. They are the best kind of customers.
Kooidea has leveraged and extended this power, bringing together college and university campuses all over Taiwan to form a socially conscious agricultural alliance. Each month different institutions select seasonal produce for a goodwill marketing campaign. In addition to providing a public service, the students gain experience with creative marketing.
As Kooidea brings together different educational institutions to support the public welfare, it is creating an ever-expanding “economy of goodwill” that is even extending beyond Taiwan. When a deadly landslide occurred at a garbage dump in Ethiopia in 2017, many Ethiopian students were studying at NTUST. In response, Kooidea joined hands with Oklao Specialty Coffee to purchase coffee beans directly from Ethiopian farmers under fair trade principles, matching Oklao’s processing techniques with Kooidea’s marketing and packaging. The revenues were returned directly to Ethiopian society.
Universities and colleges from all over Taiwan have come together to form a socially enlightened agricultural alliance that brings into play the power of “university social responsibility.” It helps disadvantaged small farmers and provides students with opportunities to understand the true meaning of giving.