By: Tri Ho. Date: Feb-2nd 2021
Following the end of our annual charity activities of the Dan On Foundation. We were busy with the end of the year and preparing to welcome the Lunar New Year. On the last day of January 2021, we returned to Central Vietnam for the second time to follow-up the previous trip in December 2020. The situation of Covid-19 pandemic was quite complicated, and our team was determined to start our journey without wavering. After departing our factory at 3:00 AM, we arrived at Tan Son Nhat airport, completed the medical check-ups to ensure the good health of the team members and start the flight. Over a 1 hour flight, we landed at Chu Lai Airport, Quang Nam Province. Prepared our luggages, rushed to the car to start moving to the first meeting point of the schedule. After more than two hours of traveling by road to Quang Ngai Province, the trucks carrying goods arrived early in the morning. We prepared the company’s nut products along with other foods such as cooking oil, rice and milk in the hope of sharing with unlucky families warm and hearty meals at the end of the year. Along with our food donation, an industry companion, Duy Tan Plastic Joint Stock Company, also provided drinking mugs, plastic tables and chairs so that families can gather to eat together, the children can sit and study after the flood had swept away and took all the furniture in their houses.
I have lived and worked for more than a year in Central Vietnam. Together, I received fierce storms and witnessed the struggles with the sun and the wind in the mountainous region of this place. I am very happy that this time I can come back to help and share a part of the difficulties, more than 3 months after storm and flood have passed.
On the way back to the villages, the flood marks on the tree trunks and on the roofs are still there. The terraced fields became green after the new transplanting season, the bridges were creaking across the river, far from the hillside marks of landslides were still there.
Upon our arrival, many people came and waited for us early in the morning. The villagers came to help us move the goods and prepare the supplies.
Upon completion, we shared the foods, goods and supplies to a total of three communes of Nghia Hanh district, on the first day’s schedule. Finished the stage to complete the preparations for the next day. As the car took us back to town, twilight gradually fall upon us like a curtain and it started pouring rain.
In the early morning on Sunday, at 5:30 am, we left the hotel and dawn has not yet risen to greet us. We arrived at the fourth point of the schedule, Di Lang township, earlier than expected. With gifts in, hand we brought happiness to the elderly and smiles to the children.
Trekking through the hillside roads, we went to the scattered communes high in the mountains of Son Ha district for the second time as promised. Although it is not possible to change the difficult life of this place in a short time. Every gift given to each family is a reprieve from hardship and hope for a better tomorrow.
At the end of the journey, the team thanked the local brothers and sisters for joining hands throughout the trip, together overcoming many tiring difficulties to complete the plan. On the way back, I kept thinking of when will I return to this place? How can we help to provide a sustainable life for families facing difficulties and disadvantaged children? How can we help the children go to school? The children will happily choose the path of study, so that tomorrow they will join hands to improve the village, overcome difficulties and build a happy life!
The Dan On Foundation is a non-profit organization founded by Mr. Dan On. On a business trip to Vietnam in 1992, he witnessed many children soliciting in the streets of Ho Chi Minh City. Moved by their plight and determined to alleviate their hardship, he decided to aid the Deaf & Mute Schools as well as funded the Catholic Schools for Minority Children to teach them the skills and language needed to escape the vicious poverty cycle. The program has been, and is, successfully run by several schools and over 30 nuns. For this humanitarian project, Dan-D-Foods and Dan On Foods provide the funding to the Dan On Foundation with the help of donations from our business associates. We’ve been able to raise funds for the continuous support of disenfranchised children and disabled adults. During 2020/2021 we reached out to the people suffering from floods in Central Vietnam and provided relief efforts to over 3,000 families. In this and future endeavors, we would like to ask for your support and join hands to help build a brighter future for those on the brink of hopelessness.
