The Taiwan's Chou Ta-Kuan Foundation has been giving recognition to those who have shown great appreciation for life by overcoming their disabilities. This year, the "Love of Lives" medal is being presented to Hsieh Hsiu-jen, the founder and the executive director of Beautiful Gate Foundation in Malaysia. Being a muscular dystrophy patient herself, she understands the difficulties that people experience everyday, while she is fully aware of the care and support they long for.

Holding her daughter to blow the candle, Hsieh Hsiu-jen is making a birthday wish, hoping that she would have more time for her daughter and husband, since she has spent a lot of her time in servicing the physically and mentally challenged individuals in Malaysia.

Hsieh began to devote herself in the field 20 years ago and established the Beautiful Gate Foundation for the disabled.

It is the first such center in Malaysia founded by the mentally and physically challenged for the people of the same problems.

The center aims to create job opportunities for the group and helps them to fit into the society by lobbying for legislation.

Hsieh says she has the courage to do so because she too is a patient.

Eight of her family members come down with muscular atrophy.

She has heard enough negative words, such as karma and bad luck and more.

Once feeling so sad and depressed, she even tried to kill herself.

Fortunately, she finds faith in religion and now she would not allow herself to feel sad for more than one day.

Her decades-long dedication to the physically and mentally disabled won her various honors in Malaysia such as the top ten excellent youth in Malaysia in 2000.

This year she is the recipient of the global "Love for Life" award presented by the Chou Ta-kuan Foundation.

Hsieh believes that the physically or mentally challenged individuals can live a life like any other people as long as they have a passion for life.