80 underprivileged Vietnamese children have received school bags and school items for the new academic year by the French NGO Poussieres de Vie in Ho Chi Minh City on September 9^th.

Children pose for a group photo with their gifts in HCM city. (Photo: Tuoi Tre News)

The gift packs included school bags, stationery, uniforms and sports shoes to underprivileged children in charity schools Pointcom and sport centers Pointsport, run by the charitable French organization.

The presents were donated by the HCMC-based game publisher Gameloft Vietnam, as parts of its corporate social responsibility (CSR) program.

“We truly hope that the small gifts that we hand to the children today will enable them to ink bigger footprints in their long journey of pursuing education,” Le Le Trang, external communication specialist for Gameloft Vietnam, shared at the ceremony.

The gaming developer has supported Poussieres de Vie through multiple activities including decorating and renovating classrooms, providing soft skills training to the children, donating computers, visiting and handing out gifts to the children during Mid-Autumn Festival, Christmas, and more.

Poussières de Vie (PdV), French for ‘Dust of Life’, is an independent, values-based non-profit, non-religious and non-political organization helping Vietnam’s most disadvantaged people through funding and managing a variety of projects in Ho Chi Minh City and Kon Tum province, according to its website.

Founded in 2002 by Patrick Désir and Olivier Petiot, PdV’s projects have since helped thousands of children. “We want to help street children in Ho Chi Minh City by giving them the means to support themselves and their families--not by begging but by going back to school or learning a trade,” Patrick says.

Since 1998, Patrick Désir has lived in Ho Chi Minh City, where he manages his own IT services company. Both of his grandmothers were Vietnamese. Paris-based Olivier Petiot also manages an IT company and one of his grandmothers was Vietnamese.

PointSport is a PdV-run sports centre located at the Phu Tho Stadium in HCMC’s District 11. Its overall objective is to allow disadvantaged children to discover, learn and enjoy practicing sports. Ultimately, PdV aims at ensuring societal integration through sports./.

Minh Phuong