A running race around Hoan Kiem Lake kicked off the 6th Mottainai Festival on the morning of October 13 with the participation of representatives from the Vietnam Women’s Association and the Japanese Embassy in Hanoi.

Director of Yakyo, Phan Thi Ngoc Phuong, won a guitar used by singer Quach Tuan Du at an auction during the Mottainai Festival last year in HCM City. (Photo: yakyo.vn)

The one-day festival, with the theme ‘Give Love - Receive Happiness’, included a wide range of cultural, artistic and sporting activities. 

Festival-goers partook in the one-lap ‘Happy Run’ or three-lap ‘Challenge Run’ around Hoan Kiem Lake to raise funds for child victims of traffic accidents. 

At the event, the organising board presented scholarship to 71 who lost father or mother by traffic accidents, and those who are direct victims of traffic accidents, as well as gifts to nearly 300 children from Hanoi’s disadvantaged child care centres in Hanoi. 

Mottainai is a Japanese word that means ‘pity for something to be wasted’.

The Mottainai Festival has been held since 2013, supporting about 3,000 child victims of traffic accidents. - VNA