About the school:
Pung Luong Semi-Primary Boarding School consists of 496 students with 95% from H’mong ethnic minority group in Mu Cang Chai, a mountainous region of Yen Bai. Majority of students are still struggling with learning Vietnamese. 65% of students are coming form low-income families who are mostly depending on highland agriculture cultivation.
About the champions:
NGUYEN KHANH HOANG
My name is Hoang Khanh Nguyen and I am currently a 10th grader at the Lycee Francais Alexandre Yersin de Hanoi. Since I was born till now, during the visits with my family to various rural areas, I realize that children there are facing up with a lot of difficulties compare to the ones in the big cities. I also admire some teenagers at my age are trying their best to make a difference by helping the children in the rural areas in many ways, which is an action that we don’t see all day.
Therefore, I decided to find out the way to contribute a little support to the children in rural areas. This will not only help the children themselves but also me myself mentally. As I still go to school everyday, so I choose part time job like being a tutor to teach French which might be important to bring the income but for me it is the great experience. It gives me a whole new vision of the world itself and the way how everyone is working hard for their family or their ancestors.
The only important objective in this project is to create the better education opportunity for the rural children by setting up the library with books and tools that are durable as I understand the importance of reading and knowledge from the books. I hope that you cooperate with me in the future to see the smile of the children as I really love the smile of the children in Pung Luong school.
PHONG HUU NGUYEN
Since I was young, I was taught that there are a lot of people around Vietnam, who are living in very poor regions and do not have the necessities or enough money to afford for a good education. Some of them were able to afford for a school, however, they would still have to go a very long, hard and dangerous road in order to get to school. Furthermore, some of the schools that these children attend do not have enough necessities for their students. Some of them do not have books for their libraries, some of them do not have chairs or desks for students. Some schools couldn’t even build a library or classroom for the students there.
For this reason, I decided to collaborate with some of my friends and created a group that sell goods to other people in order to get money and give the money we received to some schools in Mu Cang Chai, so that they could develop a good educational environment for the students there. We each picked a primary school in Mu Cang Chai, which was really in need of help, to raise fund for.
We started our business individually and had to each get 1000$ for the schools, some of us became a delivery person, some taught English or other languages to little kids or people who do not know English. For me, I sold red envelopes on Tet holiday and also taught some of my mom’s friends English to earn the money I needed. Moreover, sometimes I also bake cakes and sell it to other people to earn money. Even though we had to raise fund individually to get enough money for the school, sometimes, we also gather together on weekends to sell our products together. For example, on Tet holiday, we decided to come together to an event called Qrazy Market near Westlake to sell red envelopes, cakes, and shoes to earn money. We also recently gathered at the Quang Ba Village to sell our old things that we do not use anymore.
I think that this project of helping poor children in Mu Cang Chai helps me and my friends to gain experiences for our future since we will get experiences creating our own business. Also, while doing this project, I also felt very proud of myself since I was helping poor people and I also felt like I was a hero helping young kids in Vietnam to get a better education. Also, the fact that I was raising funds for poor children in Mu Cang Chai helped me to achieve my dream to help people in indigent Vietnamese regions. The money I donate to these schools will be used to buy books, chairs, and tables for the students there. Me and my group will also do some visits to these schools and provide the students there with food and supplies to give them a good educational environment.
