Vietnam is a developing state in the ASEAN area. With a population of about 91 million people (2017); with a GDP estimated about at 223.9 billion USD in 2018, a 6.8% increase compared from 2017. Vietnam’s rapid development aims to achieve 0% poverty and 100% electrification rate by 2020.

According to a report by WorldBank in 2017, Vietnam is successful in declining the rate of poverty from 13% in the 1990s to 9.8 in 2017 and increasing the percentage of peoples’ access to electricity to nearly 100%.

However, Vietnam still has areas that are extremely poor and lack basic access to electricity. Que Phong district in Nghe An province is one of them. It is a mountainous area that always suffer from the harsh extremes of summer heat and wet season floods. According to VTV News, the area of Tri Le is the embarrassment area of Que Phong district..

The poor citizens usually spends two or three months on working at burnt-over land, they even do not have time to take care of their child life or education level. Many live in poor living conditions, and lack of standard everyday meals. The ethnic minority houses are built from mud soil and fallen leaves. Although 97% of the population in Nghe An province has access to electricity, the remaining 3% which is a staggering number of about 87400 people lack this basic necessity. Only places such as school and media aid posts are provided continuous electricity for few hours a day.

Start Light hopes to bring a better life for the ethnic minority of Tri Le in Que Phong. We hope that with your support, the people of Tri Le will be able to have better and brigther days ahead.