(VOVworld) - More than 200 monks have joined veterans and heroic mothers in a meeting to celebrate the Khmer new year festival of Chol Chnam Thmay in Soc Trang province on Thursday. Local people, whose 30% are Khmer, have benefited from improvement in living standards thanks to Party and State policies. More than 3,500 Khmer households have escaped from poverty.

Khmer people in Soc Trang go to pagoda on Chol Chnam Thmay new year festival (photo: VNA)

A similar event took place in Tra Vinh province, where Chief of the provincial Ethnicity Committee, Lam Minh Lien, explains:“The provincial authorities held annual visits to pagodas and poor families on the occasion. We have seen more joyfulness in every new year festival thanks to the State and provincial support.”
The Can Tho City’s Fatherland Front Committee held a get together with local monks and policy beneficiary families to welcome the festival on Thursday. Mai Vai Ni from Samaki Pagoda in Vinh Thanh district pledged more efforts to ensure a stable life for local people: “Religious clerics and officials will help people in their production, agricultural development and farming. We will do more to improve our welfare and escape poverty.”