With favorable conditioned created by local authorities, the program was held on the occasion of 30^th anniversary of the ferocious battle for protecting the national border in Vi Xuyen district (1984-2014) and the Buddhist Parents Day festival 2014.

Directly taking part in the program are doctors, chemists and nurses from Bach Mai hospital and Viet-Xo Friendship hospital, and volunteers from universities in Hanoi.

Ngoc Linh commune is a locality especially facing with many difficulties, has 13 villages, 63 poor families, 15 families under special-care policy, 65 people with disability, 296 school children belonging to families under difficulty situations, 300 elders. There are a total of 238 families in the commune, in which 205 families are near-poor, and most of these families belong to ethnic minorities (Dao, Nung, Pu Peo, Muong, Ngan, Han, Tay…).  

With desire to alleviate sufferings by poor people in Ngoc Linh commune, the program organized health check-ups and provided medicines and gift boxes for free to 100% of primary school children and 100% poor and near-poor families in the commune

Before medical check-ups children were given a glass of milk. After health check and taking of medicines, they were all provided a gift box, containing bookcase, notebooks, candies and toys for children, and clothes, noodles, sugars and milk for adults… The total funding for the program was about 120 million VND.

Apart from conducting health check-ups and providing medicines and gifts at the office of the People’s Committee, doctors, chemists, nurses and volunteers came to houses of people with extreme difficulties for medical cares and presenting gifts... 

Only by coming to Ngoc Linh commune and directly interacting with people in the commune, one could understand the hardship and difficulties of life in this locality. Because most of the people in the commune are ethnic minorities, interpretation was needed in many cases during health check-ups. Some people had to start walking from their houses at as early as 3am in order to reach the commune’s center on time for the charity program. Some elders and children even said they just drank milk for the first time in their life.

All people receiving the heath check and gift expressed their deep thanks to volunteers, Buddhists and venerable Thích Đức Trung from Nam Dau pagoda for their contribution in the program. Those volunteers came to an isolated community with a principle “come to see, listen to understand”, and they actually experienced the wisdom “giving love, receiving happiness” for having brought relief and joy to people in need/.    

(Source: phatgiao.org.vn)