Charity houses wait for half a year to get support codes
In mid-2023, Ms. Trieu Hai Yen (residing in Lang Son) participated in the program "Nuoi em" through the program's fanpage. This is a charity project to support boarding meals for students in mountainous areas of preschool and primary school.
According to the project's mechanism, each " adopted child" will be supported with a "brother" for meals during the school year (9 months), at a rate of 150,000 VND/month. In addition, there is a support for facilities and warm clothes of about 100,000 VND/student. The total support level is 1,450,000 VND/student/school year.
Each student is given a fixed code, associated with the beneficiary process; one student is only adopted by a benefactor.
However, recently, there have been questions about the situation of "hunting for a code", that is, a student but 2-3 sponsors have been granted an adoption code.
The fact that all funds are transferred to the personal account of the project operator, Mr. Hoang Hoa Trung, also makes many benefactors worry about transparency.
Sharing with Lao Dong, Ms. Trieu Hai Yen said that when registering, the process was very simple, just need a confirmation message, the system would send a transfer request and issue a code. Participants must take a photo of the transaction screen to confirm.
"I transferred the money in June 2023, but until December 2023, I still did not have a child custody code. When asked again, they just said process slowly. While the young September is the school year, my code is still... untrue, she recalled.
Unable to receive clear feedback from the system, she was forced to text directly to the Facebook account of the person introduced as the group manager. More than 10 days later, she was given three codes corresponding to her younger father.
At first, the operating group occasionally posted photos of the children's meals and activities. However, the update is increasingly sparse, with occasional complete interruptions.
No one requires daily reporting, but such a lack of information is a big flaw. The most important thing is transparency, said Ms. Yen.
That year, she adopted her father in Ha Giang and Cao Bang. Because her child was still young, she could not go to the field by herself. What worries her most is that there are no reports on the use of money or the learning and living conditions of the children.
"When the payment deadline came, automatic messages were sent in large numbers. If I don't answer, the system will continue to repeat it continuously, like being forced to extend. While this is a voluntary program, she shared.
From then on, she began to doubt: "Having only issued a code for half a year is unreasonable. September is the school year, but I have not yet received the code in December. I only paid for exactly one year and then stopped.
According to her, the program can be done for real, but "must explain clearly, issue the code on time, and update complete information. Only then can people feel secure".
School confirms number of students receiving
To better understand the cash flow and implementation, Lao Dong reporters contacted Bac La Primary Boarding School for Ethnic Minorities (Van Lang commune, Lang Son).
The Board of Directors said that the "Nuoi em" program will be implemented at the school from the 2024-2025 school year and will continue to be maintained in the 2025-2026 school year. The number of students receiving the benefits is 13 and 12 respectively. The support level for the students is 8,500 VND/day for boarding meals; the cost is settled at the end of the semester.
The subjects are students with difficult circumstances but not eligible for boarding support according to State regulations.
The school representative commented: "In terms of social security, this is a very good project. However, transparency needs to be enhanced to ensure that the support money of benefactors is used for the right purposes".
The founder announced the freezing of accounts for transparent review
On the evening of December 7, Mr. Hoang Hoa Trung - founder and operator of the "Nuoi Em" project - announced that he would freeze his account to receive support to serve the financial review work.
This move was made after many benefactors spoke out about the project's operating mechanism and revenue and expenditure transparency.
According to a public announcement on his personal Facebook, on December 8, 2025, Mr. Trung will work with the bank to freeze Vietcombank account 0711000280294 for 15 days, "in order to cut off revenue and expenditure and re-number all revenue and expenditure of the project over many years".
He admitted that he had received many questions to the point that he himself was not sure if he was 100% right or not, and wished to invite an independent third party with expertise in accounting and statistics to participate in the review.
During this time, the "Nuoi Em" team will focus on collecting data and answering questions for sponsors.
In addition to the " Nuoi Em" project implemented since 2014, Mr. Hoang Hoa Trung and his colleagues also operate many other charity projects in the " Nuoi Em ecology" program, such as the " Strength 2000" project - a program calling for "each person to contribute 2,000 VND per day, joining hands to build thousands of schools in the highlands".
