HA NOI — Comedian Nguyen Xuan Bac was officially announced yesterday as the 2010-11 goodwill ambassador for Rural Water Supply and Environmental Sanitation, said Dao Xuan Hoc, deputy minister of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Bac was invited to play the role of an ambassador by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Lien Aid and UNICEF.
As a goodwill ambassador, Bac, 34 is expected to participate in on-site activities and to be a guest of honour at public and mass media events in order to deliver messages designed to raise public awareness about using clean water and hygienic latrines, and to help change human behaviours around water safety in rural areas.
Bac promised to send messages from the Rural Water Supply and Environmental Sanitation Sector widely and effectively to people in rural areas, with a particular focus on children.
More than 20,000 people, most of them children, die each year due to unclean water and poor sanitation in Viet Nam. Almost half of those deaths can be attributed to diarrhoea, the World Health Organisation reported.
Viet Nam has plans to provide clean water to about 83-85 per cent of rural households and build hygienic latrines in 60 per cent of rural households by the end of the year. — VNS
