ASEAN youth ship visits Tuoi Tre on green mission

Thirty youths from the Ship for South East Asia Youth Program (SSEAPP) paid a visit to Tuoi Tre Monday

Photo: Tuoi Tre

Thirty youths from the Ship for South East Asia Youth Program (SSEAPP) paid a visit to Tuoi Tre Monday during which they took part in an interactive session on how to save the Earth from pollution.

The youth representatives suggested saving home electricity, limiting plastic bags, classifying and recycling garbage, and avoiding polluting products.

Participants from Japan, Thailand, and Singapore took turns recounting their home experience in recycling rubbish, using eco-friendly bags, limiting air-conditioner use, and resorting to public transports.

Save the Earth because it is the only home we have, they urged.

Robert Michael Nidea from the Philippines was happy to get to know more about youths from other countries. It is so exciting to have the opportunity to explore the Vietnamese culture first-hand, he told Tuoi Tre.

At the same time, other members were busy visiting universities and Youth Union clubs around the city.

On the evening of the same day, the participants were picked up by their host families to begin their home stay experience as a practical way to understand Vietnamese customs and culture first-hand.

SSEAYP is a young leadership training program between Japan and ten ASEAN countries that has been in operation since 1999. Starting from October every year, the ships set sail from Japan to Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, and arrive in Vietnam in early December.

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Missing boat and crew return home safely

At 11 am on October 26, a search and rescue ship escorted the fishing boat QNg 66478 TS and its nine crew to Dung Quat 1 Port in the central province of Quang Ngai .

Officials from Quang Ngai provincial administration, Ly Son district and the crew’s relatives and friends gathered at the port to welcome them home.

After their arrival, Cao Khoa, the Deputy Secretary of the provincial Party Committee met the fishermen and asked the local authorities to help them repair their ship so they can resume fishing.

Local agencies and businesses have raised money to help the fishermen and as a result, each of them received nearly 15 million VND.

Mai Phung Luu, the captain, expressed his thanks to central and local agencies for trying their best to get the fishermen home. He also thanked China for rescuing them after their boat had broken down and was drifting at sea.

Quang Ngai People’s Committee presented certificates of merit to the Foreign Ministry’s Consular Department and the officers and crew of the Vietnamese Marine Police patrol vessel for their help in bringing the fishing boat home safely./.

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Leaders commemorate HCM City’s first Archbishop

State President Nguyen Minh Triet and other senior State and Party officials sent flowers to a workshop to commemorate the late Archbishop Phaolo Nguyen Van Binh on the 100th anniversary of his birth on September 1.

Almost 400 priests, nuns, Catholics and researchers came to the event to remember the first top cleric of the Sai Gon-Ho Chi Minh City archdiocese.

Cardinal Pham Minh Man, the current HCM City church Archbishop, emphasised the need to look to the past in an effort to conserve and innovate the common house for the current and future generations.

He called on Catholics to live in the spirit of, “A good Catholic is a good citizen”, to join hands in building a home for the family of everyone, a home for the community, a home for religions and a home for society, as four strong poles of a firm foundation.

All this should be done in the service of national development and the happiness of compatriot fellows and human beings, said the cardinal.

On the same day, a mass was held at the Jesus grand seminary oratory in commemoration of the 100 th anniversary of the birth of the late Archbishop, in the presence of municipal senior officials, including municipal People’s Committee Chairman Le Hoang Quan.

Duong Quan Ha, Chairman of the city’s Fatherland Front Committee, recalled the late Archbishop as a kind-hearted and generous cleric, who had led the municipal Catholic community to develop in harmony with the city’s growth.

He also recalled the late Archbishop’s great contributions to municipal stability and development.

One day earlier, the municipal Committee for Catholic Solidarity held a mass for the same purpose and a prayer for “The national peace and people’s happiness” on the 65th National Day./.

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City homeless find cheap 'hotel'

Thanh, a 42-year-old construction worker, pays VND10,000 and choses a chair on the sidewalk of Hoang Dieu street in Ho Chi Minh City.

Around 20 others are already sleeping soundly with similar arrangements.

The migrant from the central region recalled that after he finished work at midnight one day, he found that his rental home had been closed. He was about to lie down on a bench at the Ben Thanh Bus Station, but a xe om (motorbike taxi) driver said he could be caught by the police and introduced him to the "sidewalk hotel" for about 50 cents a night.

The hotel is a 50 square meter area in front of three houses operated by one of the house-owners, identified only as Cuong, who also sells drinks to his guests or other passers by.

The place doesn’t have a safe place to store money or other valuable belongings of the guests, some of whom come frequently.

One of the regulars is a porter named Hau. Every night at 1 a.m., he walks more than three kilometers from the Co Giang Market in District 1 to the sleeping place and wakes up at 5 a.m. to get back to work.

He covers his face with a hat to avoid the street light.

“I’ve got no money to rent a room,” the 40-year-old from the south central province of Binh Dinh told local news website Vnexpress.

“I work hard but only earn VND40,000 a day at most. After meals and other necessities, I have more than VND300,000 a month to send home for my two children to pay their school fees.

“Their mother at home also has to work very hard. I try to send them every single coin I earn.”

Hau recalled his going home for Tet (the Lunar New Year holiday) last year and his daughter, an 11th grader, asked for money to pay school fees failing which she would be expelled. “I could only turn away.”

He used to sleep under bridges, sometimes even on the sidewalk of the East-West Highway, but police have started patrolling the place more carefully lately.

Hau said most of the other customers do not have a home and usually stay until the morning. Many of them are xe om drivers, street vendors or construction workers.

Hoa, a lottery ticket seller nearly 60 years old from Can Tho Province in the Mekong Delta, said he used to sleep wherever possible when he first came to the city, and then a friend told him about the sidewalk hotel.

“It’s saved me a lot of money,” he said.

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