Open Letter on Community Relief
OPEN LETTER from the Vietnamese Association in Japan
Regarding relief for Vietnamese compatriots in Japan suffering from the Wuhan virus pandemic.
The Vietnamese Association in Japan (VAJ) thanks all of you who responded over the past two weeks to our call for information on the impact this pandemic is having on individuals and families. Your responses have given the VAJ Welfare Department’s Emergency Relief Team a basic picture of just how hard things have become for those caught in the worst of it.
It is fair to say that every Vietnamese person living in Japan has been affected, in one way or another, by this historic pandemic. A virus measuring just one ten-thousandth of a millimeter is throwing the world into chaos, and no one can yet predict what consequences will follow.
In particular, drawing on information from many sources, VAJ knows that among the roughly 400,000 international students and technical intern trainees in Japan, a great many are now in extreme hardship. Many cannot return home after their work contracts ended, have lost their income, have nowhere to turn, cannot get enough to eat, and have nowhere warm to sleep at night.
To get through this pandemic, on top of careful hygiene and infection prevention, solidarity and mutual support in times of trouble are absolutely essential. “The whole leaf wraps the torn leaf” — the spirit of sharing food and clothing handed down by our ancestors has kept our people alive through generation after generation of upheaval.
With this in mind, VAJ has decided to launch a “Community Relief” program, providing both moral and material support so that compatriots in difficulty can get through this hard time together.
Beyond coordinating with Catholic communities, Buddhist groups and others to make the relief work as effective as possible, we also call on the kindness of all of you — fellow Vietnamese, Japanese-Vietnamese volunteer organizations, and others — to contribute to a relief fund so that necessary supplies can reach the international students and technical intern trainees most affected.
We expect demand for relief to be very high, while the people and resources we have for delivering supplies directly into the hands of those who need them are limited. The relief work will therefore be carried out in stages, depending on the capacity of our Emergency Relief Team and the support of generous individuals and organizations.
In the urgent first stage, VAJ representatives in:
(1) Sapporo
(2) Saitama
(3) Kanagawa
(4) Shiga
(5) Nara
(6) Hyogo
(7) Osaka
(8) Fukuoka
will do their best to deliver relief packages straight to the homes of compatriots who are genuinely in need.
Each relief package contains:
– 5kg of rice
– 5 packs of instant noodles
– 5 packs of instant pho
– 1 can of fish
– 1 bottle of fish sauce
To make this relief effort fast and effective, if you are genuinely in difficulty, please fill out the form below:
https://forms.gle/qv2H4bSa2WT5pHD56
For questions, please contact:
– Association Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hiephoiVN
– Association Email: hiephoinguoiviet@yahoo.co.jp
This emergency relief work will inevitably fall short in places, given the gap between supply and demand and the varied hardships individuals and families are facing. But as long as a single grain of rice or a drop of fish sauce can warm the heart of someone receiving it, VAJ will keep this work going until we have all come through this pandemic together.
And of course, every grain of rice and every drop of fish sauce — every contribution from kind hearts — will be received by all VAJ members with great joy and deep gratitude.
Sincerely,
Vietnamese Association in Japan
President Nguyen Phuong Khanh
