Female students from Phan High School share the journey of their "Green Patch" project, which was selected to participate in the International Youth Festival on Climate Change.

Caring for the vulnerable.

Pham Quynh AnhIt's not a new name because earlier this year, she was the only student ofPhan Boi Chau Specialized High SchoolHe won first prize at the "Green Voice" public speaking and debating competition and received over 3.3 billion VND in prize money from Vingroup, including a full scholarship for a bachelor's program at VinUni University.

Participating in competitions also seems to be a way for this female student to hone her foreign language skills and challenge herself. Therefore, at the end of July, when she learned about the "Student Project Development with Climate Box" competition organized by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in collaboration with the Live & Learn Center for Environment and Community in Vietnam, Quynh Anh quickly came up with an idea for herself.

Quynh Anh shared: "The competition is a creative playground for students nationwide, promoting climate action through knowledge to bring about practical projects in responding to climate change. The time of the competition coincided with Nghe An province having just experienced several historical floods, so I was really concerned when choosing the topic and developing the project based on real stories from my hometown."

Quynh Anh's project is called "REPATCH" (Green Patch or Green Weave) and its main focus is on disadvantaged people, including students with disabilities or students in mountainous districts. Quynh Anh grew up in Tan Ky district, quite far from the center, where life was still very difficult.

Like many other localities, Tan Ky and its mountainous communes are frequently visited. Affected by storms, flash floods, and landslides, the area is home to ethnic minorities (Thai, Hmong, Khmu, etc.) living in high mountainous regions, heavily reliant on agriculture and forestry, making them particularly vulnerable to climate change. Meanwhile, the people lack access to information and training on how to prevent and cope with natural disasters, storms, and floods.

Showing the image of "patches," Quynh Anh said this is connected to childhood memories when she was a mischievous little girl who often had buttons come undone, and her mother would sew them back on for her. Vietnamese people also have a tradition of patching and sewing, utilizing fabrics to save money and reuse old items.

"The 'patchwork' also represents Quynh Anh's aspiration to implement projects that can support, provide, and fill knowledge gaps for students in disadvantaged areas, raising awareness of the disproportionate impacts of climate change."

Before launching this project, Quynh Anh and her friend also participated in a project called Green Aura – a project with workshop activities. From there, they guided people on how to use recycled fabric to create meaningful handcrafted products, raising funds to support orphaned students at the SOS Children's Village in Hanoi.

From that project, Quynh Anh developed a more ambitious idea: leveraging the resources of traditional brocade weaving in Nghe An province to raise funds for disadvantaged communities and spread awareness about climate change.

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When implementing the project, I included illustrative images of brocade fabrics from ethnic minority communities in the western communes of Nghe An province. From this, I hope to connect generations and communities including students, elderly women, traditional craft villages, and schools in mountainous and urban areas to work together to combat climate change. This is also a way to spread empathy and spark dialogue about the environment through tangible, low-cost, and easily scalable "climate patches."

Pham Quynh Anh

Increase awareness about climate change.

Beyond the overarching theme, the "Green Patch" project also proposes various other activities, such as organizing gatherings where students can embroider, patch, and tell stories about climate change, or combine it with traditional fabrics to introduce mountain culture to urban peers; organizing mobile patch galleries showcasing patches/embroidery and stories with QR codes for easy dissemination; developing an exchange program connecting urban schools and ethnic minority schools to share and discuss climate change issues; and finally, launching an online campaign to spread images, videos, and student voices on social media.

Besides Quynh Anh, who came up with the idea, the project also involved Minh Khanh, an 11th-grade student at Vinschool Hanoi. During the implementation process, despite having different school schedules and limited opportunities to meet regularly, both sisters shared a passion for environmental projects, thus finding common ground.

After completing the project, Quynh Anh and Minh Khanh also had rehearsal sessions to prepare for the English presentation rounds.

A memorable moment for both of them was when their project made it to the finals to compete with six other outstanding projects from students nationwide. Just before the official competition, Quỳnh Anh and Minh Khanh discovered an error in their presentation slides, and realized that if they didn't correct it in time, it could lead to an undesirable outcome. However, they calmly identified the error and fixed the presentation within 30 minutes, ensuring they could compete with their peers.

With many unique features, Quynh Anh and Minh Khanh's project subsequently won over the judges, and both were surprised to learn that "Green Patch" became one of the three projects awarded the best in the competition.

With this victory, in November 2025, Quynh Anh will represent the project and, along with two other students from across the country, will continue to bring the voices and climate solutions of Vietnamese youth to the region, participating in the 3rd International Youth Climate Change Festival in Bangkok, Thailand.

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The "Climate Box Student Climate Project Competition" has given us a very meaningful journey. Besides learning and connecting, we hope that our ideas will spread so that everyone can work together to implement more actions to protect the environment and combat climate change.

Pham Quynh Anh