A ball and jersey bearing signatures of the entire team that helped Vietnam become the champion of the 2018 ASEAN Federation Football (AFF) Suzuki Cup will be put up for a fundraising auction on January 13.

Items up for auction

According to the Vietnam Red Cross Society (VRC), the items are gifts from Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and the total money raised will be used to support needy residents and Agent Orange/dioxin victims during the Tet (Lunar New Year) occasion. 

Interested individuals and organisations can take a look at the items at the VRC’s headquarters at 82 Nguyen Du, Hai Ba Trung district in Hanoi between now and January 12.

The auction will begin at 6pm, with starting price set at 15 billion VND (645,000 USD). The results will be announced at a charity programme to be broadcast live on the Vietnam Television’s VTV1 channel.

The VRC said the auction is part of its “Tet for the poor and AO/dioxin victims” programme, which aims to collect at least 1.5 million gifts for the poor, AO victims, policy beneficiaries, as well as families affected by natural disasters. The VRC itself will sponsor 100,000 gifts worth 7.2 billion VND (312,282 USD) to 42 provinces and cities across the country. 

The programme also covers a mobile message campaign to call for support from society. By texting TET to 1407 from December 15 to February 14, 2019, a mobile service subscriber will contribute 20,000 VND to help the poor.

The “Tet for the poor and AO victims” movement has been launched since 1999. So far, the campaign has raised 6.7 trillion VND (288.1 million USD) to support more than 22 million disadvantaged people and AO victims during the traditional Tet festival. –VNA