Virtual community run UpRace 2021 has broken its record by accomplishing a goal of five million kilometers completed across 22 days, 238,000 runners. UpRace 2021 has yielded over VND5 billion ($220,500) in donations for four charity organisations Newborns Viet Nam, Operation Smile Viet Nam, GreenViet, and Saigon Children’s Charity. The funding came from multiple sponsors: VNG, Philips Viet Nam, Hong Ngoc Hospital, BIM Group, Minh Long I, Ong Bau Coffee, 365Begin, Younet Media, Garmin, Tiktok, among others. Receiving over VND764 million worth of aid, Da Nang-based GreenViet, a non-profit organisation working to conserve important ecosystems and endangered species in the Central Viet Nam and Central Highlands regions promises to plant 10,000 trees across the city and improve its urban air quality next year.

Students from the University of Da Nang actively join UpRace 2021 (Photo courtesy of GreenViet)

Contribute VND1,000 to charity organisations for every kilometer run

Under the UpRace, runners are allowed to run at whenever and wherever, and they must record their achievements on their mobile devices featuring global positioning system (GPS), such as smartphones and smart watches.

With each kilometer they run, the UpRace sponsors donate at least 1,000 VND to one of the four social organisations, namely the Newborns Vietnam, GreenViet, Vietseeds, and Operation Smile.

This year's UpRace is more meaningful than ever as it overcame such challenging circumstances, being that the COVID-19 pandemic is still raging on. Besides having to follow social distancing and other pandemic preventive measures, months of home quarantine also took its toll on the runners’ physical strength.

During the UpRace 2021 season, in Da Nang alone, a combined total of more than 12,300 students from 30 universities, colleges and senior high schools joined this highly meaningful virtual race, and all of them together ran a sum of more than 323,000km, equivalent to contributing VND 323,000 million to GreenViet and social organisations.

Being a first prize winner in the UpRace 2021 season, fourth-year student Le Van Luong from Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Da Nang University of Science and Technology eagerly said: “It’s my third time taking part in UpRace. Within 21 days, I completed a journey of 601km. Every morning I wake up at 4:30 a.m. and complete 10km run. Sometimes I ran along Nguyen Tat Thanh Beach or in my school’s campus. On weekends, I and my friends ran to Hoa Bac Commune in Hoa Vang District and Hoi An in Quang Nam Province with about 20 – 30 kilometer per run”.

“UpRade has successfully attracted many people from all walks of life, the more people run, the more trees will be planted. This event encourages young people to practice running habit for the sake of their health and raise their awareness of environmental protection”, said Ms. Nguyen Thi Tinh, Manager of GreenViet Nature Education Centre.

Towards planting 10,000 new trees

GreenViet- initiated ‘One Million Trees in Cities’ (MTIC) programme has showed off many projects in major Vietnamese cities, namely Da Nang, Ha Noi, and Ho Chi Minh City. This orrganisation plans to implement this programme in a 10-year period, 2020 – 2030, to plant 1 million trees

Thanks to the UpRace project with the active participation of runners, GreenViet is on track to gradually realise its dream of ‘greening’ the city with 1 million trees. With VND764 million raised through UpRace 2021, GreenViet is expected to plant 10,000 trees across the city, improve urban air quality next year, launch more educational activities to protect 1,300 brown-shanked douc langurs on the Son Tra Peninsula, and organise a wide range of nature education activities.

Mr. Tran Huu Vy, Director of GreenViet highly lauded UpRace for not only mobilising financial resources for this non-profit biodiversity conservation centre to implement the MTIC programme and improve the air quality of major Vietnamese cities, but also attracting more public attention, especially students.

Reporting by DAN TAM – Translating by A. THU