Many businesses, agencies and domestic and foreign social organisations have joined charitable activities to help the poor and disadvantaged in the central and southern provinces prepare for the Tet (Lunar New Year) festival.

In the central province of Binh Thuan , the Lawrence S.Ting Community Support Fund in Ho Chi Minh City, in cooperation with the provincial Red Cross donated 165 wheelchairs to people with disabilities. Several overseas Vietnamese, who returned to welcome Tet in the island district of Phu Quy provided 171 poor families in the district with more than 4 tonnes of rice and almost 20 million VND.

The VinGroup’s fund and Vietnam Journalist Association gave 870 gifts, each worth 500,000 VND to ethnic people in My Thanh and Ham Can communes of Ham Thuan Nam district and two scholarships to students who excel in their studies in the locality.

The “For Victims of Agent Orange” Fund of the Vietnam News Agency (VNA), the Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange (AO)/dioxin and Binh Thuan province’s Red Cross also presented gifts and provided free check-up to poor families and AO victims in Ham Thuan Nam , Ham Tan, Tuy Phong and Tanh Linh districts.

COCOA , a non-governmental organisation of Australia handed over two houses and gifts worth a total 160 million VND to the poor in three communes of Dong Phu district of the southern province of Binh Phuoc .

Branches of the Vietnam Bank for Investment and Development (BIDV) in the southern province of Binh Duong have launched the bank’s fourth “Tet Gift for the Poor” programme in the province. The bank’s staff will visit care centres for orphans and the elderly as well as remote areas in the province to deliver Tet gifts worth over 300 million VND.

Tan Hiep Phat Group in Binh Duong province presented 700 Tet gifts worth 230 million VND to families of soldiers and invalids and the poor in Thuan An town./.