A Mường ethnic teacher brings nutritious meals for children in border mountainous area

Phạm Thanh Huyền (left) is feeding an ethnic toddler in a kindergarten in Mường Lát District of Thanh Hoá Province. Photo tienphong.vn

THANH HOÁ – Over the past five years, a Mường ethnic teacher in Thanh Hoá Province has worked hard to connect with sponsors to bring meals with meat to children in the border mountainous district of Mường Lát.

She is Phạm Thanh Huyền, a teacher in Ngọc Lặc District.

Born and raised in a countryside area, from a young age she understood the difficulties, disadvantages and deprivations of a child growing up in the mountainous areas.

During the journey of connecting sponsors with needy people, Huyền has established a relationship with the students in Mường Lát District and launched the project “Together raising children of Mường Lát”, helping students have nutritious meals at school.

Talking about the initial idea of the project, Huyền said: “The idea started from a sad event in 2018, when Mường Lát District suffered a historic flood that caused severe damage to people’s lives and property.”

“At that time, people’s lives seemed to fall into a deadlock because the flood swept away everything they had,” Huyền told tienphong.vn.

“Many volunteer groups and social organisations came to ease the difficulties of the local people,” she said.

“In the middle of the cold winter, the image of children walking barefoot, wearing only a thin piece of clothing standing in the ruins after the flood, haunted me many years later,” the teacher said.

Engaging in volunteer work for many years at that time, Huyền was a founding member of the Ngọc Lặc Volunteer Blood Donation Club with 20 members, and she realised that she had to do something to help people, especially children of the poor mountainous district of Mường Lát.

When learning that ethnic students brought to school a lunch meal of rice balls wrapped in plastic bags without any meat, the Mường ethnic teacher raised the idea of ​​bringing the students meals with meat.

“Eating enough nutrients and getting enough sleep will help children study better and later build a better future,” she said.

Huyền and other members of the Ngọc Lặc Volunteer Blood Donation Club found ways to connect with sponsors and call on people to help with necessities and school supplies for children in Mường Lát District.

“Our first destinations are two ethnic hamlets of Cánh Cộng and Cá Giáng, in a particularly difficult area of ​​Trung Lý Commune,” Huyền recalled.

By September 2022, the project “Together Raising Children in Mường Lát” drew the participation of the Youth Union of HCM City’s banking sector and the Mường Lát Youth Union.

Currently, the project is operated with the purpose of finding people to “raise” poor children.

A donor inspects lunch meals at a primary school in Mường Lát District of Thanh Hoá Province. Photo tienphong.vn

Accordingly, each child is accepted to “be raised” by benefactors or “adoptive parents” who grant each child a monthly allowance of VNĐ150,000 (US$6.2) until completing their study.

“Adoptive parents” provide from the smallest items such as spoons, bowls, food trays to kitchens and water wells.

The project was initially implemented at Tam Chung primary school and kindergarten totalling 70 students.

Huyền said that at the beginning of implementation, she found that all schools in Mường Lát District at that time did not organise meals for children, so there were basically no cooking facilities.

“The schools lacked the most basic cooking utensils, so we had to mobilise donations from the smallest items such as spoons, bowls, pots and trays, to larger things such as wells, cookers, and kitchens for schools,” she said.

From the first three schools, the project was expanded to 10 schools with 498 students involved in 2022-2023 school-year.

In the 2023–2024 school year, the project continues its work in 15 schools with 831 boarding students.

The project “Together Raising Children in Mường Lát” has now been operating for nearly five years with total donations raised reaching nearly VNĐ20 billion ($821,000).

“The greatest joy of the sponsors and members of the club is to see the children go to school every day, eating delicious, nutritious and healthy meals, and having warm clothes when the weather gets cold,” said Huyền.

“We always hope that the children, especially poor ethnic children, will have better conditions to go to school to nurture their dream that one day they will take off and change their lives,” the teacher said.

“As for ourselves, we always remind ourselves to try harder in our role as ‘connectors’ so that more children in the poor areas of Mường Lát have the opportunity to go to school,” she said.

Through its five years of implementation, the project has brought better conditions at school to children in the border areas of Mường Lát.

The children’s diet is guaranteed to be healthy. The dropout rate is reduced and parents also feel more secure when sending their children to school.

Currently, the Ngọc Lặc Volunteer Blood Donation Club has attracted more than 100 members and launched several meaningful social work activities. VNS