Vietnamese youngsters join hands to make Ho Chi Minh City a better living place

A group of young people has been spreading the love for Ho Chi Minh City, formerly known as Saigon, through a media project with an aim to gain people’s trust in the moral standards of the society in their hometown.
The “A Beautiful Saigon” project was initiated six months ago by “Touch Saigon” in cooperation with “Human of Saigon,” two famous online communities of people who are willing to make efforts to improve the living quality of the city they love.
Nguyen Luan, the founder of “Touch Saigon,” and the group’s members have been wandering across Ho Chi Minh City to have a closer look into people’s point of view about the city as well as listen to their touching daily life stories.
They then shared the stories to others through music videos, photo books or voluntary campaigns to convey the message that everyone should contribute something to make Ho Chi Minh City a better place to live in.
“Ordinary stories turned out to be more meaningful than ever since they gave us hope about love and humanity in the city,” said Luan.
“A Beautiful Saigon” has received a lot of praise from Vietnamese people living in the southern metropolis and even those from overseas including hairstylist Le Tuan from the U.S., who would fly to Saigon annually to give poor, homeless people free haircuts.

The project has also inspired Vietnamese artists such as composer Ho Tien Dat, singer Nguyen Ha and photographer Pham Hoai Nam to recently release the theme song “Sai Gon Van The” for the event as a gift from them to the kind-hearted youngsters.
Founders of “A Beautiful Saigon” worked with “Chuyen Sai Gon” (Story of Saigon), another group of young people dedicating themselves to environment care in the city, to give away free Vietnamese traditional glutinous rice cakes to the homeless.
The two groups decided to hold a three-month photo contest to raise awareness of environmental issues starting from May.

Apart from “A Beautiful Saigon,” there are also other people who have secretly devoted themselves to protecting the environment in their hometown.
Nguyen Hong Viet, a 33-year-old office worker in Ho Chi Minh City, has been awarding gifts and flower bouquets to street sweepers as well as spreading their wishes to improve the living environment to other people through photos on his personal Facebook account.
Photos depicting street cleaners flashing a big smile when holding message boards to promote environmental protection on social networks have raised people’s awareness and reminded them to throw away garbage appropriately to keep their living place tidy.


Source: Tuoitrenews