VietNamNet Bridge – When Tran Viet Anh visited the mountainous Ha Giang Province in March 2015 with friends, he had no idea that the trip would impact and change their lives.

Simple pleasures: A new playground has brought joy to Mong children in Hà Giang Province. Photo: From Hoa Tren Da group’s Facebook page

One day, while resting by the Mien River in Quan Ba District’s Can Ty Commune, the group of friends spotted a stone painted with little flowers. On inquiring, the youngsters discovered that it was one of the artworks created by little girls from the Mông ethnic group, who live near the river.

Impressed by the simple beauty of the stone artworks, the friends took them back to Ha Noi, called them Hoa Tren Da (Flowers on Stone), repainted them and sold them at auction. With the proceeds, the youngsters bought utensils and painting tools and offered them to those same little girls in Ha Giang.

The name Hoa Tren Da is also used to describe the local inhabitants of Ha Giang, for their beauty, courage, and optimism despite living a hard life by the high mountains. Viet Nam’s northernmost mountainous province, Ha Giang is known as the stone plateau of the country and has some of the most breathtaking landscapes.

After that, Hoa Tren Da has evolved into a community project to help children from the country’s disadvantaged regions. The first official activity of the project was to teach children to paint; they have also started building new playgrounds for children from these regions.

This painting class was held in Sa Pa District’s Thanh Kim Commune in Lao Cai Province. “When we look at those children painting so passionately, we know that we can do a meaningful job and tell ourselves that we have to maintain and develop this project,” said Anh.

The group of friends keeps returning to Ha Giang, to meet local people and collect stones and pebbles by the Mien river, taking them back to Ha Noi, where they create beautiful artworks by painting flowers and landscapes on the stones.

In April this year, the 10 founding members started their second activity - they created a fan page on Facebook and called for volunteers. Many architecture and arts university students responded, and they got the support of some well-known young painters, including Huong Qici and Do Dang Dai. This time they collected VND17million (US$765) and with the money, they built a playground for a school in Ha Giang.

“It’s a simple playground. We used car tyres and other materials to make horses, swings and seesaws. We also decorated the school with our paintings. We are glad we did this as the playground has brought a lot of joy to the children,” said Anh.

This month, the group plans to build a playground for children in Phu Long Commune in Cat Hai District’s Hai Phong City. Previously, they had earned VND7million auctioning the painted stones.

“The more we travel, the more we see that children actually do not have many playgrounds because of rapid urbanisation… We plan to build new playgrounds on vacant land or in primary schools in the city,” said Anh, who is originally from Hai Phong.

He hopes the project will get the support of more volunteers in Hai Phong, who will come and help the group look for materials and build the playground on weekends when they are free.

VNS

Vuong Bach Lien