Teacher "Dinh Tung", "Zero-dong Bread Cabinet" and the secret to "pulling" poor students to school

The season of "pulling" students to school in the poorest village in the country

In the Vietnam Glory Program on May 19, Mr. Vu Van Tung once again returned to Hanoi in a sacred emotion on Uncle Ho's birthday. Before that, on November 20, 2023, he was honored with 58 outstanding teachers nationwide at the Sharing with Teachers program...

As a teacher in one of the most difficult villages in the country, these days, preparing to enter the new school year, he is rushing to complete shelters for families of students with special difficulties, each house worth 90 million VND... And as usual, he goes to each house to "pull" students back to school before the new school year. On his personal page, he shares a clip, calling the students to go to school, the younger one walks with his head down, the older one holds his head and walks around drying rice in the yard of the stilt house... Along with that, he is also asking for books, school supplies, and rice for students to welcome the new school year.

Teacher Vu Van Tung was born in 1980 in Dien Chau, Nghe An. After graduating from the History Department of Da Lat University in 2007, holding his university degree in hand, he carried his backpack and eagerly entered Cu Chinh Lan Secondary School, Ia Kdam Commune, a commune in the third region with particularly difficult economic conditions in Ia Pa District. Next was Luong The Vinh Secondary School, Po To Commune - also a commune in the third region with no less hardship. During the rainy season, the roads there were extremely difficult to travel, many places were isolated, the population was sparse, and the weather was harsh.

In 2015, Dinh Nup Primary and Secondary School was established, and he volunteered to take up a new assignment. Traffic conditions here are very difficult, in the dry season the sun is scorching and covered with red dust, in the rainy season there are many muddy and slippery roads, the 40km from home to school takes more than a few hours.

And then, Mr. Tung often encountered a class with only 3-4 students, or even just one teacher and one student after the morning break. He felt sorry when he knew that the students left to find food because they were hungry.

Teacher Tung often goes around asking for books, school supplies, and rice for his students to welcome the new school year.

With 385 households, nearly 90% of whom are Ba Na ethnic people in the two villages of Bi Giong and Bi Gia, the customs and practices of the people are still backward, so motivating students to go to school as well as maintaining class size is not easy. Students always lack books, clothes, shoes, and even enough food. Teacher Tung said: " In addition to teaching in class, teachers here also have to know each student's house and the entire farming area of ​​their family to mobilize and find students when they drop out of school to work on the farm to help their family."

Another time, while he was in class, he heard his students say: “Teacher! Dinh Beng has gone to work for the Kinh people in the fields.” He only had time to quickly put on his backpack and mount his old “iron horse,” and then he began a journey of more than 40km to find his students.

After nearly 2 hours of wandering through the forest, Mr. Tung found his student in a hut of a local farmer during lunch break. Mr. Tung approached and said: "Come back to me and the class." Suddenly, a woman in her 40s shouted: "Why did you steal my work?". After struggling to find words to persuade and explain, it was not until late afternoon that the woman "forgave" the teacher and student and let them go home with 60,000 VND, which was half a day's work for the student.

Along with the “Zero-VND Bread Cabinet” program, Mr. Tung (in white shirt, standing in the middle) also established a Livelihood Fund. From the mobilized funds, he bought goats, bought cows, built houses for poor students with especially difficult circumstances, helping their families develop their economy.

Although the student was brought back, Mr. Tung was still worried about how long he could keep him... He was not the only case. "Our school is located in the area of ​​​​Bi Giong and Bi - Gia villages, Po To commune, Ia Pa district, Gia Lai province, known as the poorest village in one of the poorest districts in the country," Mr. Tung said emotionally.

That is why the teachers' job here is to teach in the morning and do physical exercises in the afternoon. Before the first day of school, every day the teachers do physical exercises. They start before the rooster crows, and by the time they get home, the children have already fallen asleep.

However, it is difficult to persuade students to go to class, and even more difficult to prevent them from dropping out. Therefore, teachers have to regularly visit each house, even staying overnight in the village to “pull” students to go to class. In the early days of persuasion, many parents refused, even chased the teachers away and asked: “What is the purpose of going to school? Is there any money for going to school?”. And even slammed the door shut…

Not discouraged, Mr. Tung ate, slept, and worked together, creating closeness with the village elder. From there, he confided in the elder so that he could understand and influence the parents and students.

“Free Bread Cabinet” and more!

From his experience teaching children in disadvantaged areas, Mr. Tung said that during the harvest season, the parents of the children go to the fields to build huts and stay, so the children often drop out of school to follow them. Those who stay at home have to take care of their own meals. From there, Mr. Tung came up with the idea of ​​building a model of "Zero-VND Bread Cabinet". After listening to his story, a bakery owner decided to support 60 loaves of bread each week. However, that amount of bread was not enough for more than 370 students, so Mr. Tung had to take a part of his meager salary to buy more bread.

Mr. Vu Van Tung is one of 10 individuals honored in the "Glory of Vietnam" Program in 2024.

On December 5, 2021, the "Zero-VND Bread Cabinet" was officially opened. Thanks to the enthusiastic support of benefactors and the spread of the model, up to now, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning, the "Zero-VND Bread Cabinet" has regularly provided breakfast for more than 200 students and people with special difficulties at the schools. Occasionally, Mr. Tung prepares more milk and sausages to make the children more delicious or changes to sticky rice and buns to make breakfast more diverse. Each meal like that costs from 800,000 to 1 million VND.

Mr. Le Cong Tan, Principal of Dinh Nup Primary and Secondary School, said: “Ba Na ethnic students often skip breakfast because they do not have the means. Thanks to Mr. Tung's bread cabinet and breakfast dishes, they go to school more regularly. In addition to preparing breakfast, in the past two school years, Mr. Tung has also given necessities to students in especially difficult circumstances, given cows to students' families to increase production, he took students with serious illnesses for treatment, and in 2024, he and the district Red Cross Society donated houses to students' families in especially difficult circumstances…”.

“In addition to my lesson plan, I also carry a basket of bread in my back. On the way to class early in the morning, when it is dark, foggy or drizzling, I am only afraid of getting the bread wet, not myself because I have clothes in the trunk,” teacher Tung shared.

From that day on, every morning, Mr. Tung had to leave home at 4am to go to the bakery 25km away to get bread to give to students at 6am and finish at 6:30am.

Since the implementation of the "Zero-dong Bread Cabinet", students come to school on time and the number of students is guaranteed.

Along with the “Zero-VND Bread Cabinet” program, Mr. Tung also built a livelihood fund. From the mobilized funds, he bought goats and cows to give to poor students with especially difficult circumstances, helping their families develop their economy and have enough food for their children to go to school.

From 2021 to now, the fund has donated 5 breeding goats worth more than 10 million VND and 6 breeding cows worth more than 70 million VND to 8 students. Currently, the teacher has bought 5 breeding cows and kept them in people's barns to build a long-term livelihood support fund for students with an amount of nearly 80 million VND.

So far, this herd of cows has given birth to 4 more. However, Mr. Tung is still concerned: The biggest difficulty is how to maintain the livelihood fund. Sending cows and goats to local people's homes for care is only a temporary solution. The teachers and students here hope to have funds to have a few acres of land to build a livestock farm and grow grass to develop the herd of cows in the long term.

Not only that, Mr. Tung also supports poor patients in COVID-19 treatment, and helps students get medical treatment. Among them, the most serious case was a student who had a fungal infection, a strange fungus that penetrated deep into the skull and brain. And then the teacher took the student for treatment for 5 months before the disease was cured. Or the case of a student who went to get treatment for congenital heart disease, thanks to the teacher's connections, 100% of the surgery costs were sponsored...

Not yet fluent in Mandarin, Mr. Dinh Ton (40 years old, father of Dinh Phyem, a student of Mr. Tung) emotionally recounted the story of his son being taken to Quy Nhon by Mr. Tung to be treated for a strange fungal disease for several months. He added: “I have 3 children and 2 orphaned grandchildren, so my children did not have breakfast when they went to school. With the teacher's bread, my children were very happy to go to school, but when they came home, they only had to herd cows and eat rice with cassava leaf soup” ...

“Teacher, please don't leave us!”

After many years of being attached to this place, thinking of his wife having to sacrifice to take care of the family alone, and the children being disadvantaged because their father worked from dawn to dusk every day, in the summer of 2021, he wrote a request to transfer to a job closer to his family. " Accidentally, a student read my application, so he and his friends met the teacher and expressed: "Teacher, please don't leave us!", I was extremely moved and kept that file...", Mr. Tung confided.

Together with sponsors, Mr. Tung deducted extra from his teacher's salary to support bread for students far from home.

“As a History teacher, when implementing the new general education program, I have to research and learn more. I have to use new methods to develop students' abilities such as using information technology and integrating movies. The most obvious effect is that students are increasingly interested in learning, and are willing to cooperate in building lessons very well instead of just sitting passively like before”...

“Teaching students is not only about teaching letters and personality, but also about morality and lifestyle, so I am always transparent about all income and expenditure and encourage students to go to school. As a teacher in a remote area, we hope that the Party and the State will have many policies to support teachers, especially teachers in remote areas. At the same time, we will improve the people's knowledge and develop the economy here so that people can have a stable life. Because for our people, if their stomachs are not full, they cannot learn letters,” Mr. Tung confided...

Sharing about his acts of kindness, Mr. Tung was moved, because he grew up in the fields, from a poor countryside, his childhood and his path always had teachers and many people helping him, so he loved his students like his own children. For him, life is a long journey, he is always grateful for the good things in life. Because gratitude is also a happiness...

Source: https://baophapluat.vn/thay-dinh-tung-tu-banh-mi-0-dong-va-bi-quyet-keo-hoc-sinh-ban-ngheo-den-truong-post522429.html