Nguyen Thi Hoa in Ninh Binh province wants her friends and family members to join her and register as tissue donors.

According to Hoa, deep-rooted Vietnamese beliefs that a dead person should have all their organs have long hindered tissue donation.

However, determined efforts in communication by local authorities and agencies and touching stories of tissue donors like Major Le Hai Ninh or Mr. Duong Hong Quy have gradually changed people’s minds.

The tissue donation movement in Ninh Binh province first became popular after the first local resident Nguyen Thi Hoa registered for cornea donation in 2007.

There have been 15,000 people registering for tissue donation in Ninh Binh province with 235 cornea donors and two organ donors.

They have brought light to hundreds of blind people and claimed back lives for many others.-VN