As covid-19 saps Vietnam’s economy, private charity is blossoming

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DESPITE THE mid-morning heat, residents of the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, swarm around the dispenser filling their brown paper bags. Having taken her share, Vu Thi Hoan straps the 2kg package to her bicycle and prepares for the journey home. Ms Hoan, who collects and sells trash for a living, has seen her income diminish in recent months, “probably because now there are more trash collectors”. Before covid-19 struck she sold cardboard for 3,000 dong ($0.12) a kilo. Now she is lucky to get a third of that. Like many others, Ms Hoan, a migrant from rural Thai Binh province, only gets by thanks to a free weekly visit to the “rice ATM”.

A property company called Cen Group set up the dispenser in late May to support Hanoi’s poorest through the epidemic. The firm only provided the first five tonnes of rice, however; since that ran out the scheme has continued with donations from the public, says Pham Thanh Hung, Cen Group’s vice chairman. The local authorities have helped, too, says Mr Hung, by...