An event held by the “Restoring the Environment and Neutralising the Effects of the War” (RENEW) project in Washington D.C. on September 22 completed its target of raising 100,000 USD for mine clearing activities in Vietnam's central province of Quang Ngai.
The event, taking place in both virtual and face-to-face forms, saw the participation of US officials and people, most of them Vietnam War veterans.
In his speech, Chuck Searcy, co-founder of the project, said the fund raised will help expand demining activities to Quang Ngai, where there are many unexploded ordnances threatening the safety of the people.
Launched in 2001, RENEW aims to help the central Vietnamese province of Quang Tri, one of the fiercest battlefields during the war due to its geographic location, settle post-war bomb and landmine impacts.
In 2001, Quang Tri recorded 80 people dead and injured by war-left bombs. No bomb-related accidents took place in the province in 2018.
Ngo Xuan Hien, in charge of the project's development and communications management, said after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19, RENEW wants to resume fund-raising activities in the US to replicate its operation in Quang Ngai. (VietnamPlus [1], Vovworld [2], Qdnd [3])