Recently, more than 5,000 police officers have been introduced to the message of Prem Rawat in Taiwan. It all started in Kaohsiung, where officers in every police station (over 4,000) came to an event where a Words of Peace video with Chinese subtitles was shown. About a third of them picked up materials to bring home, and several have shown their interest in receiving the Knowledge that Prem Rawat offers by beginning the Keys preparation. Since then, four of the city’s police stations have requested materials from WOPG for their libraries, and one station held another presentation for its 200 volunteers in November.

Little effort – big impact

How did this happen? In the last few years, a couple from Hualien, Taiwan’s largest county, have been telling their friends that they discovered something permanent in their lives that they could enjoy. In 2007, they invited Belkis Shah, who works internationally to help make Prem Rawat’s message available to more and more people, to visit Taiwan and help the local teams in their efforts.

Meeting with people interested in helping out, Belkis encouraged them to make presentations to local institutions or organizations. One person, who was new to the message, mentioned that he had a friend who was a police officer and that he wanted to let him know about this message of peace. So he took a video to his friend, and the man liked it so much that he gave it to the top-ranking police officer in the area. This man was so taken with what he saw that he invited the team to introduce Words of Peace videos as part of the annual officer’s training, explaining that he realized the message would benefit all police officers.

When Belkis was in Kaohsiung city, she showed the photo slides of the police officers’ event in Hualien, explaining what had happened there. Someone in the audience stood up and said, “I am a police officer, and I would like to present a video at my police station, too.” In the spring of 2009, team members had a meeting with the Mid-Rank Police Officers in Kaohsiung, and as a result, the Section Chief attended the event with Prem Rawat on May 23rd in Tainan. After this event, the Chief became very excited about promoting the message among Kaohsiung officers, so he strongly recommended to the top decision-makers to arrange a presentation of Words of Peace at their annual Police Officers Training at the head office as well as at every police station in Kaohsiung. This is how it happened that over 4,000 police officers came to watch videos of Words of Peace.

Teamwork made it possible

The Kaohsiung volunteer team was excited about this opportunity and understood that it would take commitment and teamwork. The preparations started September 1st via conference calls to set up the format of the presentation. One working meeting held on September 13th included people from other cities who wanted to help. They discussed their introduction, selected the videos to show, and what follow-up materials could be made available. Then volunteers signed up to arrange each event.

Afterwards, all the volunteers who participated were so happy with the experience that they are now talking about new plans for bringing this message to more people. Some who had never participated in anything like this before said they were impressed by how the little effort they had made resulted in such a tremendous response from the police officers. Everyone seemed enthusiastic about playing a part in more projects and felt a new confidence about doing them.

Police feedback

For many, it might be surprising that police officers would respond so enthusiastically to a message of the heart, but in Taiwan they certainly did. The group of officers even had a hearty laugh when Belkis concluded, “Police officers are human beings after all!” No offense was taken.

Here is some feedback from participating policemen:
- “I now feel like a candle lit by Prem Rawat, and I want to light other unlit candles by telling them about this possibility.”
- “The volunteers for the Insight Foundation [that sponsored the events] appear shiny and bright. We want to have the materials in the Siaogang branch.”
- The Section Chief Officer strongly encouraged her colleagues who were not at this training to attend the events at headquarters.
- A police officer in the Lingya branch office enthusiastically recommended this training course to his colleagues after his second event.
- An officer in the Zuoying branch was so touched after hearing about the message for the first time that he was asked if he would like to say something at the next event. His response was, “Yes, I would be happy to!” Speaking of Prem Rawat, he said, “He speaks with great passion, and we look forward to many more such events in Taiwan.” 

Message appreciated

Prem Rawat’s message has been officially recognized and appreciated for a number of years in the western part of Taiwan as well. On May 23, 2009, Prem Rawat was granted the key to the beautiful, ancient capital of Tainan. In a talk that focused on Tainan’s history — as a religious and cultural capital of Taiwan and the site of the historic Sino-Dutch peace treaty — the mayor of Tainan City, Tain Tsair Hsu, spoke of how honored he was to receive an Ambassador of Peace in his city. “The Peace Ambassador has finally arrived, and we have to work with him for peace and harmony,” said Mayor Hsu in a warm welcome to Prem Rawat. He then presented him with the Golden Key to the city as well as an emblem of the Sword Lion, a symbol of the cultural capital of Taiwan.

NB: Please note that this report was the work of many people working closely together. I simply put it together in English. Some of the main contributors were: Belkis, ChuanTsung, HanYu, KuanMing, LiFang, and SuMei.