Hanoi (VNA)🎀 – State and local officials have granted gifts to children, especially, poor, underprivileged and ill children across the country on the occasion of this year’s Mid-autumn festival, annually held on the 15th day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar (September 15 this year).

President Tran Dai Quang on September 14 sent a letter to children nationwide to wish them a warm mid-autumn festival. In the letter, President Quang said he hoped all Vietnamese children would become able citizens to make Vietnam shoulder-to-shoulder with other countries in the future. On September 13, Vice President Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh gave gifts to 95 child cancer patients in the Hanoi-based K Hospital. She also joined children in folk games and watched music performances with them. On the same day, Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tien and the “For a bright tomorrow” fund presented gifts to 70 child patients at the Central Pediatrics Hospital. In northern mountainous Lao Cai Province, local administration undertook a range of activities including granting gifts and holding a “Warm mid-autumn festival” night for local ethnic-minority children. Ly A Chao, a Dao ethnic-minority boy said, “Every year when the day is coming, I expect a lot, I expect to celebrate mid-autumn festival with my friends.” Vuong Manh Phu, Secretary of the Communist Youth Union of Bat Xat District, said more than 2,000 children were awarded gifts. In Sa Pa Town, local children enjoyed the mid-autumn festival on September 13 night by eating moon cakes and carrying star-shaped lanterns around the town. In northern Ninh Binh Province, children at the provincial Social Protection Centre received gifts to celebrate the mid-autumn festival from local officials on September 14. The coastal central Phu Yen Province’s Labour, Invalid and Social Affairs Department worked with the local Maternity and Pediatrics Hospital to organise the programme “Mid-autumn festival for you” for 100 children in the hospital. More than 1,000 gifts were also sent to poor children in the province. In southern Ca Mau Province, 800 gifts were given to children with disabilities and homeless children. In Vietnam, on the full moon night, children join traditional celebrations, including eating moon cake, carrying carp-shaped lanterns, and watching lion dances in streets.-VNA