So far, the Vietnam Children's Fund has built 48 primary schools in 63 provinces across Vietnam.

(VOVworld) - Samuel Christopher Russells, Head of the Project Office of the Vietnam Children’s Fund, has been awarded Vietnam’s Friendship Order in recognition of his contributions to child care and protection in Vietnam. The Chairman of the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organisations, Vu Xuan Hong, presented the honour to Russell at a ceremony in Hanoi on Tuesday.

Hong said that over the past 20 years Russells had spared no effort to mobilize funds and manage operations. He noted that the Vietnamese State President’s Friendship Order acknowledged substantial contributions made by Russells and the Fund to educational development and vocational training for people with disabilities in more than 40 provinces and cities across Vietnam. Russells shared his feeling when he received the award: “That was very special, incredible show for me. We hope to continue building schools. We still have about 23 provinces more to build to finish our goal and so there are still lots of works to do. We hope we can find the funding so we can continue. We have funding to build schools this year so that will be 49. And we need to get a bit more money to be able to build that, so maybe later this year.”

Established in 1994, the Vietnam Children’s Fund aims to build a primary school in each of 63 provinces and cities across the country. So far it has built 48 such schools, offering more than 30,000 poor rural children the chance to go to school.