Faced with hunger, students receive the help they need

Many pupils at the Dong Son High School in Tan Son District, Phu Tho Province have been suffering from hunger and malnutrition for over one month.

Right after learning about the difficult circumstances at Dong Son High School, in the early morning of January 22, representatives from Dan Tri/DTiNews and donators went there and brought rice, noodles and other essential items to provide them and to see for themselves the situation.

Assisting foods delivered to Dong Son High School (Photo by Quoc Cuong)

Nguyen Hong Truong and some other caring individuals found out of the struggles people were dealing with, they decided to support them with 50 boxes of noodles and other foods such as fish sauce and dried fish worth VND3 million ($162).

Pham Huy Hoan, Editor in Chief of Dan Tri/DTiNews cum Director of Vietnam Fund for Promoting Education was made aware of the difficulties, he requested that the fund donate them VND20 million ($1,081) to help them overcome difficulties.

Ha Truong Ngo, Chairman of the People’s Committee of Dong Son Commune said they set out to urgently help Dong Son High School and 76 families of Xom Moi and Ben Than Hamlets to deal with hunger. The People’s Committee of Tan Son District gave 10kg of rice to each family on January 23.

Transporting rice to save pupils (Photo by Xuan Truong)

“Thanks to the help of Dan Tri/DTiNews and donators, today my pupils have the first sufficient meal after one month,” said Le Ma Luong, Principal of Dong Son High School.

The first meal with meat and eggs after one month they ate just taufu
and scrap. (Photo by Quoc Cuong)

We saw 62 pupils sitting and eating their meal enthusiastically. Some felt shy when they were asked about their situation.

Many families here do not have enough rice to eat so they are forced to eat yam and manioc instead.

“Many families in Ben Than Hamlet faced with serious hunger. They have to go to the jungle to find yam and exchange it rice,” said Ly Van Seng, Head of Ben Than Hamlet.

But yam will soon run out because a lot of people are searching for it. It takes over 3 days in the jungle to get 10kg of yam. Each kilogram is worth only VND5,500 ($0.29).

Seng said that he had gone to the People’s Committee of the Commune to request that they to help nearly 40 families to be provided with rice. One third of them are facing serious hunger problems.

“Our school and teaching staff are trying their best to help out our 62 pupils to overcome hunger which is threatening them everyday,” said Le Ma Luong. “Each family gave us 13kg of rice and nearly VND100,000 ($5.4) for one year but several months ago they requested us to help them provide food for their children so that they can continue going to school because they are in serious need due to the failure of crops.”

Over 60 pupils of Dong Son High School often eat taufu (Photo by Xuan Truong)

Despite very modest incomes, many teachers have to borrow money to buy rice for saving pupils from starving.
Pupils shared that they did not have enough food to eat for a long time. They eat rice with scrap, salted fish, taufu and some vegetables everyday.

Each meal cost only about VND1,000 ($0.05) for over one month according to Luong.

Hunger is not only a problem at this school, but also for Xom Moi and Ben Than hamlets where people are struggling because rats have damaged their crops.

“Due to the failure of crops, many families do not have rice or money to support their children at school. Each of us contributed VND30,000-50,000 ($1.62-2.7) to school for buying food,” said Nguyen Thi Hue, a teacher working for 10 years.

Teacher Nguyen Thi Hue understands very well the difficult circumstance of poor pupils here. (Photo by Quoc Cuong)

Trieu Van Ha, an 8th grade pupil shared that, "My brother left school to support my weak parents for many years. I also left school to help my family but my parents asked me to try to continue my studies. Moreover, school helps me to have food to eat.”

“We will support them with 300 kg of rice and 20 boxes of noodles for the first stage. We will come to know exactly how many rice and noodles the school and Ben Tham Hamlet need after we finish our survey.” said a donator.

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