Football for All in Vietnam (FFAV) is sending four young amateur footballers to Russia to participate in FIFA’s Football for Hope Festival 2018.

Ha Danh Du, one of the four members of the Vietnamese team participating in FIFA’s Football for Hope Festival 2018 in Russia, talks to an audience before departure. 

The festival, which will take place from June 25 to July 5 in Moscow, is an official FIFA event that will be held on the sidelines of the ongoing World Cup. The Vietnamese team of four will take part in the event along with 47 teams from other countries.

The team is composed of two girls and two boys from the Xuan Phu Patronage and Vocational Centre, a local orphanage in central province of Thua Thien- Hue.

Ha Danh Du, a member of the Vietnamese team, said participating in the festival is a great chance for him to show off his football skills and learn from other participants. It is a dream that comes true for a disadvantaged child like him, he said.

Du and teammates Doan Thi Huong, Le Thi Ngoc Anh, and Truong Dinh Hoang were housed at the orphanage after their parents passed away due to diseases or accidents, and their families could not manage to feed them anymore.

The four members of the Vietnamese team and other children in the orphanage had regular football practice sessions last year thanks to a playground built by the FFAV in the facility. The FFAV said the four were chosen not based on their excellence in football, but on their attendance in regular practice sessions.

The FFAV, a project run by the Football Association of Norway, began its operations in Vietnam in 2003. It is headquartered in Thua Thien- Hue and works mainly to promote community football, focusing on rural children.-VNS/VNA