With the spirit of loving others as you love yourself, Nguyen Hong Ha (born in 1981), a young man with a disability from Hoai Duc District, Hanoi, has become “a right-hand man” helping many people with disabilities in the same situation to find jobs and rise up in life.
Nguyen Hong Ha is now Chair of the Hoai Duc District Association of People with Disabilities, Vice Chair of the Hanoi Association of People with Disabilities, and Director of Hong Ha Co., Ltd.
Born less fortunate than other children his age, at two months old Ha suffered a bout of polio and both his legs withered from then on. Although every activity became difficult, Ha knew he was a person with a disability, but he was always confident and soon set himself a path to strive for. Ha hoped that one day he would enter university. Through his own efforts, Ha passed the entrance examination to Hanoi University of Foreign Studies (now Hanoi University), graduated, and found a job he loved at a general manufacturing and trading enterprise for people with disabilities in Thai Binh Province. Not stopping there, Ha continued to worry and dream about how to help many people in the same situation become confident, develop their abilities and chart their own lives in society. In 2005, with support from his family, Ha established an Industrial Sewing Centre for poor people and people with disabilities in Yen So Commune (Hoai Duc District). At first, when the centre was newly established, Ha faced many difficulties, but he did not lose heart and always made the most of all support and help from associations and authorities at every level, from central to local. After nearly nine years of operation, Ha's Industrial Sewing Centre has grown into Hong Ha Co., Ltd. The company has taught trades to many people with disabilities and poor people and has become a trusted address for young people with disabilities across Hanoi seeking work. The company now has nearly 40 workers, most of them people with disabilities, orphans and children of poor farmers.
Ha believes he is fortunate to have achieved some initial success and always hopes that young people with disabilities will overcome their inferiority complexes, develop their strengths and seize their opportunities to integrate positively into life.
Mai Thao – http://hanoimoi.com.vn