The community responds

By Mong Binh in Can Tho Volunteers of Victoria Can Tho and the schools pick up the rubbish on the Hau River section near a market in the Mekong Delta city on Saturday - Photo: Mong Binh Pham Xuan Thu, a student of law at Can Tho University, joined the Green Day at Victoria Can Tho Resort in 2009 and returned this year last Saturday to team up with the hotel’s staff to take the rubbish from the Hau River’s section that flows by Cai Khe Ward, Ninh Kieu Wharf and the main market of the Mekong Delta city. Thu and his schoolmates as well as a slew of Can Tho Tourism College’s students rolled up their sleeves for the annual program in response to the Victoria Hotels and Resorts’ appeal for keeping the environment clean in line with its goal when the group initiated it seven years ago. “Any negative change to the environment will place bad impact on people on the earth. So, to protect the environment is to save our life,” Thu told the Daily, having finished collecting used plastic and glass bottles, plastic bags, spongy boards and other non-disintegrated things floating on the river and stuck on its banks. Thu said he was happy when doing something good for the environment and the community. Another student called Truc Phuong from the Can Tho Tourism College seconded Thu’s ideas, saying that doing the good deed of collecting stinking wastes also brought a lot of fun to her and her schoolmates for the day. The environmental clean-up helped Phuong realize that many people have not been aware that their daily habits such as littering will pollute important sources of water for their life, agricultural production and fish farming in the region. That was why she needed to take action to contribute to the green program. As a student majoring in tourism, Phuong said rubbish would harm the major job-generating industry in the region. “Visitors will not cruise rivers and shun the water-based tours if they find a lot of wastes in the water in the Mekong Delta. Surely, they will not come back to an unclean environment.” Phuong’s point was backed by Eric Simard, managing director of Victoria Hotels and Resorts. “The ultimate aim of holding our annual Green Day is precisely to promote Green awareness within the local community so that we can all work in hand to provide sustainable tourism for future generations.” “As more and more local people in our locations are working within the tourism industry, the promotion of green awareness has also helped them see the needs and benefits for protecting our environment,” he added. Victoria Can Tho’s general manager Vo Xuan Thu told her staff and students before they boarded boats for the clean-up that she did not expect all the wastes would be removed from the Hau River within one day, but their action would encourage more people not to dump anything into the water. “I thank you for actively participating in our Green Day. What we do on Monday are a small action but of paramount importance to spreading the environmental message to all,” Thu said before getting on one of the 25 small boats that Victoria Can Tho mobilized from the community on that day. The general manager told the Daily that the number of participants in the environmental campaign would have surpassed 120 including the hotel’s staff if the property had been able to hire more suitable boats. She elaborated these boats should be safe to run on the large river but were able to make their way to houses on stilts and corners along the river so that student volunteers and her staff could reach the garbage. More volunteers This year, the Green Day drew more volunteers and students for the group’s Green Day across the surrounding sites of its resorts and spas in the northern mountainous town of Sapa; Hoi An and Phan Thiet in central Vietnam, Can Tho and Chau Doc in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam and Siem Reap in Cambodia. Always, Victoria staff members led the seventh campaign which attracted more than 1,000 voluntary outsiders from all walks of life, including students, room guests and local people living in the areas who supported green initiatives. “We definitely see the increase in participation from both local communities and tourists who stay with our resort,” Simard said. “The concept of green awareness is still quite new in some remote villages, thus every year our hotels try to engage more school children from surrounding villages so that it’s both fun and educational for the young generation.” Simard said tourists sought an opportunity to do something good outside their countries and the Green Day met their need. “Many tourists in our hotels joined, as many of them have never participated in such a meaningful event overseas and it gives them a great opportunity to interact with the local community.” Simard said the campaign had run successfully over the past years because of the supportive and enthusiastic response of locals. “We definitely accredit the success of our annual Green Day mostly to the participation and enthusiasm of the local community. The event not only brings out an educational green message, but it also fosters community bonding where both hotel staff and local residents gather together and contribute for a very good cause,” he said. Simard’s words were demonstrated by Thu from the Can Tho University and Phuong from the tourism college, as they said they would come back to Victoria Can Tho next year to join forces with the hotel’s staff to clean the Hau River. The Saigon Times Daily