He made the statementat a meeting to prepare for the charity programme “Joining hands for the poor”which will be held on October 17 in response to Prime Minister Nguyen XuanPhuc’s appeal to leave nobody behind.
The event, which willbe broadcast live on Vietnam Television, aims to honour local andinternational individuals and organisations which have supported needy people,joined charitable activities and contributed to the Fund for the Poor.
According to Hau A Lenh,Vice President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front (VFF) Central Committee, theprogramme raised nearly 945 billion VND (40.8 million USD) for the poor in2018.
By the end of Julythis year, the Fund for the Poor had raised more than 43.8 billionVND (1.9 million USD), and other activities are ongoing to support communitiesin need.
The money has beenused to build and repair over 18,600 houses for impoverished households acrossthe country and to implement thousands of projects and social welfareprogrammes targeting the disadvantaged.
“The programme provesthat efforts are spread across the whole society, having a deep sense ofhumanity and social security. It will express our country’s moraltradition la lanh dum la rach (the intact leaves protecttattered ones), contributing to helping the poor escape from poverty,” said TranThanh Man, President of the VFF Central Commitee.
Minister of Labour,Invalids and Social Affairs Dao Ngoc Dung said the country had 1.3 million poorand 1.2 million near-poor households. The poverty rate stands at 55.27 percentamong ethnic minority people.
Nationwide, thenumber of households suffering from a shortage of food has reduced by 31.7 percentover the past seven months.
He attributed thepositive results to the efforts made by the central Government, localities andthe whole society as well as the fact that there were fewer natural disasterscompared with previous years.
“It also signals thatpoverty reduction work has been more sustainable than before,” Dung said.
He proposed spendingabout 40 billion VND left over from the 2018 Fund for the Poorto build and repair about 1,000 houses starting in Octoberso that poor people could welcome the New Year in a safe, new house.
The minister saidthere were currently 900,000 blind and 1.1 million deaf people, of which about400,000 were in position of chronic poverty. Two enterprises have offeredto provide free smart phones for deaf and visually impaired people equippedwith software to make them easier to use.
Deputy PM Hue, who isalso head of the Steering Committee for the National Target Programme for 2016-2020,agreed with a proposal to launch the fundraising text message campaign for theprogramme earlier than usual, on August 19 instead of October 1 aspreviously planned. The campaign will last three months to gather moredonations. People can donate by sending a text message to the NationalHumanity Portal at 1400.
The Ministry ofInformation and Communications was instructed to work with communicationscompanies to help the text message campaign run smoothly.-VNA