Many people admire Le Quang Toan not only because he is a person with a disability who carries out many meaningful volunteer activities, but also because of his dream-like love story with a beautiful, gentle girl.
The volunteer knight with a disability
Not as fortunate as many other people, from the moment he was born Le Quang Toan (born 1979), living in Bac Ly Ward, Dong Hoi City (Quang Binh), has had a body with a disability.
Speaking of his childhood, Le Quang Toan suddenly fell silent: “My mother gave birth to me when she was only seven months pregnant, and I weighed only 1 kg. But thanks to my parents’ devoted care, just three months later the frail baby weighed 3 kg. As a child, when people saw me they often joked: a body like a beer bottle, a head like a coconut.”
While other children were taking their first toddling steps at one year old, it was not until he was three that Toan dragged himself along, clinging to the wall, to learn to walk. Seeing their three-year-old son covered in scars on his knees from falling over made Toan’s parents ache with pity.
Not until he was 10, seeing his friends of the same age going to school with their satchels, did Toan insist on asking his parents to let him go to school: “Because he was so thin and weak, and had a disability, my husband and I never dared to think of sending him to school. But seeing that he had the will and was determined to study, we felt comforted in a way,” said Mrs Tran Thi Lien, Toan’s mother.
“Because I have a disability and my nerves affect my body, learning to write was really very difficult; my writing was like squares, and the number 2 came out as the letter z,” Mr Toan recalled.
After the thorny time of finishing high school, when people thought the “education” journey of the young man with a disability had ended, he surprised everyone around him with his will to live by studying for two years at a vocational secondary course in Information Technology at the Quang Binh Agro-Industrial Technical Secondary School. Not stopping there, after finishing secondary school, Mr Toan also passed the entrance exam to the University of Technology (Vietnam National University, Hanoi) on an in-service programme.
When people mention Le Quang Toan, they think not only of a young man with a disability who has extraordinary will and effort in life, but also of his tireless volunteer work with disadvantaged people. That is why many people who meet him share the same view: he is a young man with a disability who is passionate about volunteering.
Volunteer knight Le Quang Toan on a charity trip giving gifts to ethnic minority people
Mr Toan shared about his journey into charity work: “Wanting to share love with people in difficult circumstances, I registered to join the Quang Binh online community page, and together with its members called for donations of books, notebooks and school supplies for pupils and poor people from Tan Trach, Thuong Trach, Dan Hoa, Thuong Hoa and Yen Hoa to the Phong Nha buffer zones…”.
He also worked with others to connect the online community at home and abroad, calling for and mobilising relief for people affected by natural disasters, storms and floods, and for people with disabilities. At present, Mr Toan works at the Quang Binh Provincial Association for the Protection of Disabled People and Orphans.
Through his volunteer work, he has received many precious awards: one of the Top 20 outstanding individuals of the “Swallow Volunteer Award 2011”; the Swallow Award 2012 for an outstanding individual; the only person with a disability among the five outstanding individuals awarded the “National Volunteer Award 2012”, chosen by the United Nations and the Central Youth Union (December 2012); a certificate of merit from the Central Association of People with Disabilities (April 2013); a certificate of merit from the Chairman of the Provincial People’s Committee in June 2013; and he was honoured as one of the 10 outstanding citizens of Dong Hoi City in 2014.
Le Quang Toan during a survey of wheelchairs for a couple with disabilities (the person on the far left)
A dream-like love story
As energetic and enthusiastic as Le Quang Toan is in his work and volunteer activities, so he is self-conscious and lacking in confidence in matters of love.
“Many times, seeing friends my age with warm, happy families, I wanted that very much too. But thinking of my body with a disability, I felt self-conscious and lacking in confidence,” Mr Toan shared.
In the past, Mr Toan also had a love with a girl from the North, whose legs also had a disability. But at that time, the girl’s family did not agree, because they feared that if both had impairments they would not be able to support a family.
Toan’s life went on like that, in charity trips bringing joy to poor people and people with disabilities in circumstances like his own. Sometimes, seeing friends and family urging him about marriage, Mr Toan would fall silent and change the subject.
Until one day, Toan surprised and delighted his relatives and friends by introducing the beautiful Le Thi Minh Thu (born 1992) to everyone.
Speaking of her love, Ms Minh Thu shared: “Through our meetings, I saw in him an extraordinary will and determination. It was his strength, always knowing how to overcome his own limitations to help others in greater difficulty than himself, that made me love and trust him more and more.”
The dream-like love story of the young man with a disability Le Quang Toan and the beautiful girl fills many people with admiration
And so, a dream wedding was held in Dong Hoi City. On the wedding day of “Toan with a disability”, relatives and friends from all over the country came and filled the wedding marquee to congratulate him on his happiness.
At the wedding, many people were moved to see a beautiful, strong-willed girl cutting the cake herself, opening the champagne, and then leading the groom, walking with a limp, to every table to toast them.
A friend of Mr Toan shared: “A young man with a disability in body, but who knows how to rise above everything to gradually affirm himself in this life. Through his own efforts and a kind heart in acting and connecting, he now has a full job, a career… and especially his own happiness. So many friends from all over the country travelled long distances to gather in Quang Binh to share his joy. Beside him is now a beautiful wife with a generous heart who will accompany him for the rest of his life.”
Ignoring all the gossip about his body with a disability, with will, effort and a kind heart, Toan won the heart of the young, beautiful, gentle girl to be his wife. That is perhaps a happy ending for the young man with a disability who is passionate about volunteering.
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