A major charity campaign was launched by the Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange (AO)/ Dioxin (VAVA) on August 4 in Hanoi and it is expected to collect donations through mobile texting to help Agent Orange victims.
Senior Lieutenant General Nguyen Van Rinh, VAVA’s President, called for people in the country, Vietnamese people in abroad and friends in the world to support for more than 3 million AO victims by texting DACAM to 1409. Each SMS costs VND18,000 (US$0.82).
Mr.Rinh said that in response to the campaign “ Action for Vietnamese AO victims” launched by Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee with the help of the Ministry of Information and Communications which set up the humanity switchboard 1409, during 4 years, the charity text message campaign has received the over 700,000 messages collecting over VND12 billion (US$ 550,050).
The support manifested the strong public support to charity activities as well as the society’s bosom to AO victims.
VAVA will allocate the amount collected from the campaign to its sub-associations in cities and provinces to build houses for AO victims or rehabilitation facilities and give directly to the needy AO victims across the country.
In 2014, VAVA received total amount of nearly VND2 billion (US$ 91,741) which was used to provide 61 scholarships and build 14 houses for AO victims.
