With their joint love heading towards their homeland no matter where they live, a group of Vietnamese women who now live in the U.S. have come up with the initiative of running a campaign to raise funds from a wide range of donors across the world for Da Nang and other Vietnamese localities in a bid to support their great efforts to combat Covid-19.

The Vietnamese women are seen attending their daily online meeting about the campaign. From left to right, from top to bottom: Truong Phan Ngoc My, Nguyen Ha, Bui Ngoc Thi, Trieu Thuy Lan, Doan Thi Minh Phuong and Ngo Ngoc Linh.

Soon after Ms Nguyen Ha expressed her wish to help Da Nang in its fight against the deadly virus, she immediately received high support and active involvement from her 5 female friends, 4 of whom, namely Ngoc My, Bui Ngoc Thi, Trieu Thuy Lan and Doan Thi Minh Phuong, living in different US states, and the other, Ngo Ngoc Linh, a resident of Ha Noi.

Just a few days later, the five Vietnamese woman have jointly launched the Joining Hands campaign to help Viet Nam to combat the deadly virus with their ultimate goal of raising funds for their homeland just within a week.

The 5 kind-hearted women’s notable campaign, which officially started running on the evening of 16 August, has received a great deal of active support and generous donations from Vietnamese students, experts, businessmen and scholars across the U.S.  In particular, the campaign has also reached out to other Vietnamese donors living in such other countries as Japan and South Korea.

The campaign till date attracted 1,300 shares on social media, and its Facebook fanpage has attracted more than 24,000 followers thanks to the wide sharing of the netizen community.

According to the campaign organisers, their biggest challenge facing them is time. In reality, three of them worked from home, whilst bearing heavier domestic burden with their child-care responsibilities during office and school closures as a result of the adverse impact of the coronavirus in the U.S. Meanwhile, the workload of setting up such a campaign is quite large, but it needs to be completed urgently.  This fact prompted members of the campaign organisers to triple their efforts compared to normal as they usually slept less and worked more.

These women got actively and enthusiastically in their bustling campaign-themed discussions which run through midnight, even stretching until 6:00am- or 7:00am. After that, they returned to the daily rhythm of their own personal work and family-related affairs.

The ‘Joining hands for Viet Nam’ had raised 10,000 US$ mark as of 21 August

Encouragingly, the campaign organisers raised a total of around 1,500 US$ from 35 generous philanthropists in the U.S., on the first day of its inception.  The amount jumped to 4,700 US$ one day later, and reach the 10,000 US$ mark on 21 August, going beyond their initially-set expectations.

On 21 August, 5,000 US$ (equivalent to 115 million VND) raised from the campaign went to support Da Nang and its neighbouring province of Quang Nam.  According to Thuy Lan, a member of  the campaign organisers, of this figure, 40 million VND was used to buy medical protective equipment and essentials for medical workforce and families under lockdown in Nong Son District, Quang Nam Province. 

The remainder was spent on buying necessities for 50 people living in extremely difficult circumstances in Da Nang and 83 cyclo drivers who now turn unemployed due to the virus resurgence in the city, and providing medical protective gears for hospitals in Quang Nam Province.

Thuy Lan said the donated amount is not quite high, but it shows the highly sentimental attachment to the homeland amongst overseas Vietnamese people living across the world.

“We know that this campaign is just one of many activities that Vietnamese people living around the world has been doing to support Viet Nam.  We hope that the contribution made by the Vietnamese community in the U.S. and in other many countries worldwide would give more strengths to beloved Viet Nam so that our country will succeed in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic”, said Lan.

By VnExpress- Translated by A.T