Vantai24h - The company sponsored the charity program “Warm jackets for mountainous areas held by the Hanoi‘s Club of Backpacking with 5000 instant noodle bags, 2000 powder laundry bags.
After a long day struggling with dangerously curved roads and sleeve-like curves, we finally came to Muong Ly Town, Muong Lat District, Thanh Hoa Province.
On last days of 2013, when the freezing cold covered every northern corner, local children in Muong Ly had to wear thin clothes. They welcomed us with bright smiles. It seemed that the cold did not take their small joys when seeing us. This made the volunteers of the Hanoi’s Club of Backpacking and Transport 24h moving and deeply realized that the charity program they were holding would bring small fires but meaningful to this place.
Muong Ly is a mountainous village in Muong Lat District, which in the east of Thanh Hoa Province. It has borders with Laos and not far from Sam Nua District. There is no electricity and markets here. The path leading to the district center goes along hillsides next to Ma River. Most of local people live in high, mountainous areas so children do not have chances to study in schools. Some villages are 30 kilometers away from the school so ethnic students in Muong Ly must walk barefoot through many kilometers, cross dozens of mountains to schools.
According to local teachers, in school year 2012-2013, the Secondary School of Muong Ly has 308 students who live in the school dormitory, so in 2010 the school built two new campuses to provide good accommodations for students to study and live away from home. However, the new campuses only met half of students’ demand (168 out of 308 students). The rest must stay at temporary tents in the school yards. Thao Thi Da from Cha Lan Village said: “ In the cold winter like this, four people in a camp is so little that we must sit next to each other to study because we do not have enough warm clothes and blankets.”
Understanding local children‘s difficult situations, the charity program “Warm jackets for mountainous areas” held by the Hanoi’s Club of Backpacking and Transport 24h Co. Ltd transported 200 sets of school furniture, 5000 instant noodle bags, 300 kilograms of rice, 2000 powder laundry bags, more than 800 boxes of milk and books, notebooks, school supplies, medicines, blankets… to local children to fight hungers and cold winter. We hope that they will keep studying hard to enrich their knowledge and contribute to the development of ethnic minorities’ communities here.
Although it is easy for lowland students to get to schools, there are many alerted problems such us school violence, dropping out of school, early love... which make parents feel worried about. In contrast, children here have a strong interest in studying but poverty, difficulties with terrain, traffic and outdated practices of indigenous people has prevent them from development. Ngan Yen Dam, a 9 grade student said: “We want to spend half of the day at school and the rest at home to help our parents with housework. However, the school is 20 kilometers away from our home and the best way to travel here is to walk due to hazardous terrain, so have to set up tents here to stay”.
As far as we know, students in the campus are all from distant villages and impoverished backgrounds. If not having school work, they spend most of their time in the woods to find vegetables, timbers for cooking. Trang Thi Doi, a twelve year old girl from Cha Lan Village said: “I come home every week not only to visit my family but also take rice, vegetables. If having enough money, my parents will give me to buy more food. When in the shortage of money, we just boil some taros to fill our stomachs. Food shopping needs careful calculations to ensure adequate meals for a week.
To continue studying, local children must accept adversities. One important thing is that families in Muong Ly Village have strong determinations for their children’s studying. The residents here may realize deeply the importance and values of education.
Mr. Dinh Cong Dat, the Chairman of Muong Ly’s People’s Committee said: “We really want to build strong schools and houses for children to study but our budget is very limited. The local authority will take advantage of every opportunity and support from benefactors to construct more new campuses to give students better accommodations.
One day at Muong Ly Village for the charity program, we can understand more clearly difficulties, materialistic shortage which lurks around people here. They are models for us to live better and endeavor to contribute the society’s development. We hope that benefactors all over the country would contact us and join hand to help highland children continue going to school. Please contact Transport 24h Co.Ltd for more information./.
Some pictures action of program
Source: Duc Tam (Bao QDND)
Translator: Thanh Hoa
