Mr. Nguyen Huy Khanh (born in 1989), from Tan Hung ward (Hai Duong city), owner of the YouTube channel "Huy Khanh Vlogs - African life" is having an interesting and challenging journey when implementing the project to build the first Vietnamese village in Africa.
Huy Khanh is the eldest of three brothers in a family of three brothers, living in difficult circumstances. During his days at Thanh Dong High School, along with studying, every night he had to wake up at 2am with his mother to go to the night market in Hung Yen, Hanoi to sell goods to cover the tuition fees for his three brothers. Selling until 5am, he hurriedly ran out to catch the earliest bus back to Hai Duong to get to class on time. During his years in high school, selling goods with his mother like that has trained him to have the will to live, which is a valuable asset in his future path to adulthood.
After graduating from high school, the young man with many dreams and ambitions did not have the chance to enter university. Because his family was poor, he did not choose to retake the exam to continue his dream, but stayed home to help his parents with farming and construction work.
At that time, many families sent their children to work abroad, but because of hepatitis B, not all countries accepted them, so my mother researched and borrowed money to send my brother and I to Angola. “My mother had to borrow 200 million VND at interest and borrow more than 40 million VND from my brothers to have enough 14,000 USD for my brother and I to work abroad. This was not an easy decision for my parents, with the hope that we would have a better future. At that time, my brother and I were 22 years old and 20 years old, so we listened to our parents and went to Angola after 6 months of waiting. My life in Angola began on September 2, 2010 - Vietnam's National Day," Khanh said.
Arriving in a new land, Mr. Khanh encountered many difficulties, not understanding the language, inconvenient travel and fear of being robbed. “At that time, Yahoo was the only means of communication but I also did not have a phone to text home,” Mr. Khanh recalled.
Overcoming that difficulty, Mr. Khanh started learning the language by going to the local people's shops to see how they spoke. After about 2 months, he was able to talk a little with the people here. And after 9 months and 15 days, the two brothers, thanks to the relationships during their time working in Angola, received their first project and gradually developed.
Life in Angola was challenging but also very interesting for Khanh. He learned how to adapt to the new environment and take advantage of the job opportunities here.
Journey of sowing life
It was an arduous but meaningful journey of Mr. Khanh bringing new life to village 3 Casas, Ucua commune, Dande district, Bengo province.
Talking about the village of 3 Casas, there are 16 households living here, an area lacking everything from clean water to medical facilities, schools, no electricity, no telephone network. Previously, this place was full of sand, gravel, weeds and houses built of earth, roofed with trees and grass, at risk of collapsing at any time. The whole village only had one muddy water hole, the size of a winnowing basket, full of flies. This was the only source of water for the whole village to eat, drink, bathe and do daily activities. Most of the children here did not go to school, their clothes were not intact and they did not change them for a whole week. Every day, they went into the forest to find cassava roots and leaves to eat to survive.
In October 2023, while on a business trip passing through a small village, witnessing the poverty of the people here, although the economy was not yet well off, Mr. Khanh still decided to share and help the people have a clean water source, helping to make life less difficult. Mr. Khanh confided: "Angola holds many memories, helping my family in Vietnam escape poverty. I consider this my second homeland."
Thinking is doing, up to now, Mr. Khanh has helped the villagers in many projects such as: clean water wells for bathing and washing, clean water filter tanks for drinking, building spillways, digging water storage ponds... In addition, with the agricultural development project to escape poverty, he supports and guides the villagers in growing crops according to Vietnamese agricultural techniques.
During his time in the village, helping people build wells and supporting agricultural projects, he saw dilapidated houses leaking water during the rainy season. With his experience in construction, he came up with the idea of building houses to help people, called "Model Vietnamese Village" so that other disadvantaged villages could look at and expand their development based on this idea. At the same time, he wanted to share Vietnamese construction techniques with Angolan villages, introducing the beauty of Vietnamese countryside to international friends.
The first Vietnamese village in Africa is a large project consisting of 18 houses, including 16 private houses, 1 community cultural house, and 1 school. The project started in late 2023 and started construction in early 2024. The first item is the construction of the community cultural house. The community cultural house has a red flag with a yellow star painted on the roof, symbolizing the heart of Vietnam. Up to now, the 10th house is under construction. During the construction process, he continues to train young people and locals in construction, welding, and trading in necessities so that later on, people will have a job to earn a living and enrich their families.
These houses were built with bricks, cement mortar, and red corrugated iron roofs. The initial funding was provided by Mr. Khanh himself from his own income and the profits from the couple's shop in Hai Duong. Not being well-off financially, in the initial stages of implementation, he had to save, balance his living expenses, and personal expenses to develop the project and help the people.
While implementing the projects, he also built his personal YouTube channel “Huy Khanh Vlogs - African Life”. The YouTube channel was built in September 2023, for him to record his memories of his youth in Angola and share his journey of building projects there. To date, his YouTube channel has nearly 20,000 subscribers.
If you follow Huy Khanh's YouTube channel, you will see the difficult lives of Angolan people and their joy when receiving meaningful gifts.
With his humane and meaningful content, his YouTube channel is known by many people and spreads more widely. Many Vietnamese "philanthropists" at home and abroad have proactively contacted and accompanied him to carry out the Vietnamese village project. Currently, his project has the support of 1 Vietnamese and 2 Angolans along with many sponsors to cover the cost of purchasing materials, sand, cement, and corrugated iron roofs.
The Vietnamese village project in Angola by Mr. Khanh and his colleagues has been visited by local leaders and authorities, and has been recorded and broadcast by the Angolan Central Television Station TPA. Notably, Vietnamese Ambassador to Angola Duong Chinh Chuc visited and plans to include the Vietnamese village project in the plan to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Vietnam - Angola diplomatic relations in 2025.
Sharing on his personal page after visiting Khanh's project on June 21, Ambassador Duong Chinh Chuc wrote: The construction of the houses was done by Khanh and a Vietnamese person digging the ground, making bricks, and the villagers supported... Behind the village are fields of beans, eggplants, tomatoes, and vegetables that the group has built while instructing the villagers. It is truly a great effort by the Huy Khanh Vlogs group. The Embassy hopes to have the opportunity to cut the ribbon to inaugurate the Vietnamese village in 2025, the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Vietnam and Angola.
Mr. Khanh will strive to complete the project in 2025 to cut the ribbon. The project has special significance in international cooperation between Vietnam and Angola in economic development, sharing experiences and techniques, improving people's quality of life, and promoting cultural exchange.
As a native of the Eastern land, he wants to spread the image of Hai Duong youth as active, intelligent, hard-working, loving, helpful, and sharing to international friends. He hopes that the YouTube channel will develop, become more known and spread, and connect with many charitable organizations, so that he can return to his hometown to help those in difficult circumstances.
LINH LINH