Secretary of the Quang Tri provincial Party Committee Nguyen Van Hung speaks at the forum in Seoul on November 11

At the event, held at the headquarters of the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) in Seoul, Secretary of the Quang Tri Party Committee Nguyen Van Hung said there remain numerous difficulties facing people with disabilities in his province, and they need more support from the whole of society, including NGOs and foreign governments, to bring into play their abilities and help them overcome social barriers so they are not left behind.

He believed the model of combining social services with functional rehabilitation centres services used in the RoK is suitable for Vietnam. He expressed his hope that KOICA will sponsor the building of a social protection and rehabilitation centre in Quang Tri and assist the province to carry out this model to facilitate the targeted group’s access to social and rehabilitation services, thus helping with the implementation of the Law on Persons with Disabilities and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Vietnam.

At the forum, Vietnamese Ambassador to the RoK Nguyen Vu Tu thanked the RoK Government, KOICA and Medipeace for carrying out a number of humanitarian assistance activities in Quang Tri.

He said he hopes that apart from Quang Tri, other Vietnamese localities will continue to receive support from the RoK Government and NGOs from the Northeast Asian country.

For his part, Kim Un Sop, head of the social cooperation division at KOICA, said his agency will continue reinforcing ties with domestic and foreign organisations to help bring better lives to the disabled in developing countries. He expected more chances to actively discuss this issue with Vietnam.

Vietnam is currently the largest assistance recipient of the RoK, while the RoK is the second biggest supplier of official development assistance to Vietnam.

Over the years, Quang Tri has carried out many cooperation activities with the RoK. Aside from projects funded by the country’s Government, it has also received support from NGOs, especially Medipeace, for the local healthcare sector, including in capacity building for medical workers, rehabilitation of disabled children, and medical equipment provision for disadvantaged areas.

Quang Tri was a fierce battlefield during the wartime and is contaminated with unexploded ordnance (UXO). It is striving to become the first locality in Vietnam to be free of post-war UXO impacts in 2025.

Thanks to local efforts and assistance from foreign organisations, UXO accidents in Quang Tri have fallen from about 70 per year between 2001 and 2005 to two in 2017. Notably, the province did not record any UXO victims in 2018./.VNA