Bustling social activities are being conducted these days by the Foundation for Vietnamese Families’ Health, from nutritional food for children in the hinterland, bicycles for poor students, and construction of houses for poor families under the State gratitude policy. The foundation, launched by New Image Vietnam in 2019 to perform corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs, has ever since conducted numerous social activities across the country in collaboration with other domestic organizations.
It should be noted that New Image Vietnam, established in 2013, is a direct-selling company distributing health products imported from New Zealand, and the year 2023 marks the 10th birthday of the company. However, social activities conducted by the Foundation for Vietnamese Families’ Health these days are not meant to be celebratory, as the foundation’s contributions to society have been steadily organized as work-a-day practices, and its activities are not limited to health issues only.
Targeting the poor
Since early this year, the Foundation for Vietnamese Families’ Health has set the target to support poor people by executing various social programs in collaboration with local agencies like the Ministry of Health, the Vietnam Red Cross Society’s Central Committee, and the HCMC Department of Industry and Trade among others. Its mission, as stated by the foundation’s leader, is “cooperation for sustainable development and social contribution”.
In early April, in responding to a call from Vietnam Red Cross on enhancing “Nutrition for poor, disabled children”, the foundation helped build and handed over a kitchen for a boarding school named Ma Tra 2 Kindergarten in Lai Chau Province’s Sapa Town. Alongside the kitchen worth VND100 million, the foundation also called on other partners to contribute VND50 million to improve nutrition for children there.
Also around that time, on April 8, the foundation in collaboration with the HCMC Department of Industry and Trade and state agencies in the Mekong Delta province of Tra Vinh donated 100 gifts to poor households there. It also donated bicycles worth VND50 million to outstanding students from poor families in Soc Trang Province nearby.
The donation of bicycles to poor students is part of a larger CSR program, in which the foundation has plans to donate VND300 million to building six gratitude houses for poor families and VND200 million to buy bicycles for students in 2023. It will also organize two zero-dong shopping days to provide essential commodities free of charge to poor households.
Pham Son Tung, deputy CEO of New Image Vietnam and head of the foundation, stressed that “responsibility towards the community has now become corporate culture and a foundational business principle at many enterprises in Vietnam.”
According to Tung, “the foundation’s mission is not limited to taking care of people’s health, but expanded to promoting the overall wellbeing of people.” In this spirit, the foundation has collaborated with Thanh Nien newspaper to support children orphaned by the Covid-19 pandemic. The two sides have signed a long-term agreement to benefit those children, under which the foundation, New Image Vietnam and its distributors have sponsored 12 children since the end of last year, with a total sponsorship value of VND510 million.
Since its inception in December 2019, the foundation and its partners had organized 31 social programs across the country, making donations worth over VND4 billion.
Raising awareness of health protection
However, as an arm of the health products distributor New Image Vietnam, the Foundation for Vietnamese Families’ Health has consistently focused its CSR activities on raising public awareness on health protection.
The foundation has deepened its cooperation with the National Center for Health Communication and Education by signing an agreement this year to organize workshops on health protection. Under the agreement, six workshops will be organized in Binh Duong, Quang Nam, Thanh Hoa, An Giang, Dak Lak and Bac Giang provinces with the topic of “Enhancing knowledge on healthcare for families and the community”, aiming to gather some 1,500 people.
“The foundation has always sought to disseminate the message of health protection for all people. Therefore, the foundation highly values the cooperation with relevant agencies and organizations like the Ministry of Health and the Vietnam Red Cross Society among others,” said head of the foundation Pham Son Tung.
In June 2022, the foundation successfully organized the Antibodies Day in Hanoi and HCMC on the occasion of the Vietnam Family Day. The events aimed to encourage physical and spiritual exercices to improve antibodies crucial for safeguarding people’s health.
