Good student but hard to "keep up" because parents are seriously ill, family is too poor

(Baonghean) - The mother has mitral valve regurgitation and stage 3 heart failure, the father has a mental illness, the family is poor but the two children Tran Quoc Hung (born in 1998) and Tran Van Tuan (born in 2001) in hamlet 7, Ly Thanh commune (Yen Thanh) still study hard, every year they receive certificates of merit and rewards from the school...

We arrived at hamlet 7, Ly Thanh commune at dusk, Hung and Tuan had not returned from school yet, their father Tran Van Doa (born in 1976) was catching eels in the field. Seeing the guests, Ms. Lang Thi Quyen (born in 1977) was lying on the bed and sat up shakily. Pouring water for the guests, she sighed when she saw us attentively looking at the shabby things in the house: a black and white TV and an old fan that was broken and patched up with exposed wires, a rickety double bed and a broken bicycle lying in the corner of the room.

Two brothers Hung and Tuan in the study corner.

The family has a large garden but has had to leave it fallow to let grass grow because of illness for many years, so Quyen and her husband cannot do heavy work. They have 2 sao of rice fields, and when the harvest season comes, they ask their uncle and aunt to help them, and each year they harvest over a quintal of rice. The family has 4 mouths to feed, and because of illness, they sometimes go hungry, sometimes they are full. The main food is vegetables and tubers brought by neighbors, occasionally they buy a small amount of fish to eat sparingly. Hung and Tuan rarely eat meat, so every month, out of pity for their children, Quyen goes to the beginning of the village to buy some cheap fatty meat and skin to nourish them, but she also has to buy on credit, for the past 4 years the debt has reached millions and has not been paid (the butcher is the wife of the village chief, and because of her poor family situation, even though the debt is large, she does not have the heart to collect it).

Although their families were poor, both Hung and Tuan were very obedient and studious, receiving certificates of merit from the school and awards from the scholarship fund every year. In 2009, Hung passed the entrance exam to Bach Lieu Secondary School (a key school in the district). Both his father and mother were seriously ill, so Hung asked his mother to stop studying to work for hire. Relatives saw that Hung was a good student, so they encouraged him and joined hands to help him not drop out of school (however, due to family circumstances, Hung had to return to Nam Thanh Secondary School near his home to help his parents with housework). The school gave him priority to lend textbooks, his uncle sponsored notebooks, and his grandmother gave him a sow to take care of, which gave birth to a litter of piglets to sell to pay for tuition.

Mr. To Minh Dai - Head of Hamlet 7, Ly Thanh, expressed his concern: “Ms. Quyen's family is very poor, the level 4 house that her parents left behind was damaged, every time it rained and was windy, the whole family had to go to her grandfather's house nearby to take shelter. Feeling sorry for her sick husband and wife and to have a place for their two children to study, relatives contributed nearly 8 million VND, and the associations at all levels guaranteed for her to borrow an additional 10 million VND from the Policy Bank to buy materials; in April 2013, relatives and neighbors contributed to build a tiled house to protect them from the rain and sun, but it still had to be repaired from time to time because every time he had an epileptic seizure, Mr. Doa would break this place, destroy that place... The worst thing was that many times Mr. Doa had an epileptic seizure and fell in the middle of the field, and the neighbors discovered and brought him home. But when he was sober, he still had to go to the shelter, catch eels to sell to contribute 50, 30 to pay for his children's school fees. Ms. Quyen was sick and had to go to the hospital and take medicine regularly, although she was sick, she still had to go to work. rent to earn money to live. The two sons are at the age of eating and growing but they do not have enough to eat, let alone food…”.

Mr. Le Doan Loc - Secretary of the Party Committee of Ly Thanh commune said: "The commune also guided the family to complete the procedures and documents to receive the 202 policy, but the district replied that there were still many more difficult cases. In 2014, the commune policy officer instructed Mr. Doa's family to continue completing the documents, because at present they have only been recognized as poor households and have not received any subsidies...".

To encourage the two children's efforts in studying and to support Mr. Doa and Ms. Quyen in their medical treatment, we request that all levels and sectors pay more attention so that their family can enjoy the State's subsidy regime.

Article and photos:Dam Phuong