Hoang Hoa Trung – Hanoi boy born in 1990, leader of the Faith volunteer group – known by many people as Trung “Raising you”, Trung “junk” spent his youth with his colleagues writing ” new book” for children in highland areas through the “Raising Children” project.
We had the opportunity to meet Trung at the Forum “Influential Vietnamese 2024” taking place in Paris, France at the end of March. Among hundreds of attendees, the Hanoi boy quite stood out with his always smiling smile. on her lips with shoulder-length hair.
For Trung, being a guest at the Forum “Influential Vietnamese 2024” is his dream. Here, the young man had the opportunity to interact and discuss with many other famous people about how to do volunteer projects, helping them develop stronger in the future.
Many computers have come to students in remote areas thanks to the program “Informatics room for children”.
“Lunch” sparked ideas
Before going to the highland village, Hoang Hoa Trung had time to build volunteer projects in Hanoi. But in 2009, realizing that Hanoi had many similar activities, the young man decided to move the support object from Hanoi to the highlands.
“At one time, the number of people wanting to contribute reached hundreds or thousands, but the number of people who needed help was limited. There are even days when centers for orphans and disabled children welcome 10-15 volunteer groups, making the children feel tired when they have to welcome so many groups at the same time. Meanwhile, this number does not happen for children in highland areas – where living and learning conditions are very difficult.”Mr. Trung said.
From there, Mr. Trung and his companions began their journey to the highlands. Projects to raise funds to build schools and donate necessary necessities to students from ethnic minorities, mountainous areas, and border areas have been implemented.
However, during a return visit to a school in a small village of Nam Vi commune (Dien Bien) conducted by himself and his colleagues, Mr. Trung discovered that the number of students going to school in the morning was only 20, but in the afternoon there were only 20 students. 4 children. Through many days of living with relatives, the young man was able to understand why children in highland areas often drop out of school.
“Because our family is so poor that we don’t have rice to bring with us, our parents go to the fields, so at noon, the children put their baskets on their backs and go into the forest to dig bamboo shoots to boil and eat. When they were full, it was getting dark, and their house was far from school, so no one could go back to school to continue studying in the afternoon. It was also from that lunch that my colleagues and I began to plan and implement the idea of a volunteer program to raise lunch for students in the mountains called Nurturing Children.”the young man shared.
From the first days of implementation, Nurture Children did not promise to implement macro plans, only a simple desire to bring meaningful and practical things: Just a lunch so children can excited to go to school. And Hoang Hoa Trung and his project partners have done just that.
Children in the highlands now have warm clothes to wear thanks to donations and support from benefactors.
Talking numbers
Up to now, the Nurturing Children project has been present in three countries. Supporting 650 students in Cambodia, 350 students in Kenya (Africa) and the Project is accompanying and supporting 23 provinces and cities in Vietnam with a number of 95,000 students.
The Adopt a Child project offers a very specific approach, each individual will adopt a child with a monthly contribution of 150,000 VND. With that amount of money, the children will be able to board and board at school. In addition, the local teachers are connected with the adoptive parents. Once a month they update each other’s information and visit the children once a year.
After more than 10 years of volunteering, Hoang Hoa Trung and his volunteer group have implemented a series of programs and projects other than “Raising Children Project” such as: “Kindness Cards”, “Light of Mountains and Forests Project”, “The Brave Hero Project”, “The Strength 2000 Project”, “The Children’s Bookcase Project”… help hundreds of thousands of poor children in highland areas.
In particular, Hoang Hoa Trung is very proud when mentioning the Raising Children Bookcase project. In just 10 months, with all efforts, the Project successfully transferred 709 bookcases to nearly 1,000 schools in 11 provinces and cities.
Sharing about the changes compared to more than 10 years ago, Mr. Trung said that before, he used to go to each school to raise funds, earning thousands of dong to accumulate a few hundred million, but now the difference is that the group does not go to each school. another place to campaign but only need to sit in one place to worry about cash flow operations.
“Previously, we only raised a few hundred million dong a year, but now the number sometimes reaches tens of billions of dong, so we have to operate the project and cash flow in the most standard way.
In addition, there are more work-related difficulties, a larger number of people following the project, and we also have to find sources to pay for those participating in the program every month because they are of working age and need money to survive”Trung shared.
Many new schools have been built spaciously, replacing temporary schools thanks to the volunteer projects of Trung and his group.
Want to volunteer all my life
After years of traveling to the highlands to do volunteer work, Mr. Trung sees this as his real life: ”For me, volunteering is a part of life. Helping poor children in highland border areas with warm clothes, books, beautiful schools, adequate meals, etc. to study is the happiest thing. Although we cannot avoid difficulties and hardships when doing volunteer work, for me, when I do something meaningful, I will receive the same thing in return.”