VietNamNet Bridge - Minister of Transport Nguyen Nghia Dung has awarded a friendship medal to Greig Craft, President of the ASIA Injury Prevention Fund for his contributions to traffic safety in Vietnam.
In 1999, Craft – a successful businessman stopped doing business to do charity activities for community interests. Seeing the increase of victims caused by traffic incidents in Vietnam, Craft decided to devote remaining years in his life to contribute to improving land traffic environment in Vietnam.

In 2000, he worked with U.S President Bill Clinton during his visit to Vietnam to launch the “Helmets for Kids” program. Under this program, 500,000 helmets were distributed to children in elementary schools throughout the country.

Craft also contributed to amending and issuing standards on helmets, supplying technical assistance to traffic police, bringing programs on land traffic safety to primary school and implementing campaigns to raise community awareness on wearing helmets.

He launched a non-profit project to make helmets, branded Protect, which are designed exclusively for the environment and climate in Vietnam. The helmet factory employs many disabled people.

Craft’s success in Vietnam has been applied in some developing countries through the “global helmet vaccine initiative.”

Craft also helps Vietnamese children who suffer from genital malformations. He plans to assist 60 disabled children to have operations, starting from November 2011, in cooperation with the Hanoi Medical University’s hospital.

PV