American Largesse Gives the Disabled More Mobility

(SGT-HCMC) Nearly 30 Americans were on hand yesterday when disabled children and adults of HCMC, Tien Giang, Ben Tre and Vinh Long were presented with 345 wheelchairs donated by West Coast community organizations.

The visitors represented the San Francisco area-based Wheelchair Foundation, the Rotary Club of Seattle, and Vietnam Help, an organization run by the Vietnamese community in San Jose. In all, the three groups will donate 1,500 wheelchairs for the benefit of disabled Vietnamese this year. The money to purchase these wheelchairs came from a round of joint charity parties and auctions in San Francisco in June.

To date, over 1,000 of these wheelchairs have found their way to the intended recipients via the HCMC Poor Patients Welfare Association.

At yesterday’s handover in HCMC, Vietnam Help chairwoman Do Anh Thu expressed deep gratitude to everyone involved and said they had kind hearts.

She added that the wheelchairs would be of inestimable benefit to the recipients, and that more such help would be forthcoming.

Another member of Vietnam Help said the 1,500 wheelchairs came from China and cost US $ 150 each to deliver.

Nguyen Vinh Nghiep, chairman of the HCMC Poor Patients Welfare Association, said that nearly 3,500 wheelchairs have been given to Vietnam’s disabled via the association in the past five years.

Nghiep then pointed out that many disabled people were still in need of wheelchairs, including around 30,000 in southern Vietnam.

“We will try to find 500 to 1,000 more wheelchairs in each of the next two years, mainly for children in the south, and are confident of further assistance to meet this goal,” he said.

“We express our deepest thanks to those hundreds of thousands of people in and outside Vietnam who help and have helped disadvantaged Vietnamese people.”