The Vietnam Red Cross (VRC) on November 13 said that nearly VND34 billion had been collected over the past three years from the program on sending messages through the national humanitarian portal. The money has been spent carrying out humanitarian activities.Since October 2010, the VRC has worked with Vietnam Multimedia Corporation (VTC) to fund the program in support of flood-stricken people; poor families; build safe water constructions to serve people and soldiers on the Spratly Islands; set up a fund for identification of the names of martyrs; raise money for surgeries for child heart patients; support the Japanese people in mitigating earthquake and tsunami consequences; donate animals to poor farmers; and pay gratitude to martyr's families.After three years, the program is effective as the capital collected has practically assisted the poor, Agent Orange victims, and people affected by natural disasters.The VRC has also launched a new message sending campaign to raise funds for helping the poor welcome the upcoming traditional lunar New Year.From 14 November 2012 to 14 February 2013, for each "TET" message VND12,000 will be contributed to the VRC fund in an effort to help one million poor people welcome Tet.Accordingly, each poor or AO family is expected to be given presents worth at least VND300,000 for Tet.Since 1999 the movement on Tet for the poor and AO victims organized by the VRC has aroused the participation of diverse organizations, enterprises and people with over VND1.321 trillion collected, helping over 8.2 extremely disadvantaged families. (Hanoitimes.com Nov 15)
