"Just head in, and when you see a house out front with five coconut trees, look for the most run-down house in the whole hamlet. That’s his."
Those were the directions a neighbor once gave a stranger looking for Loi’s home, back when Loi was in the eighth grade. In the countryside far from Saigon, his family’s small thatched house stood behind five coconut trees.
Loi in 2008, around the time he received the scholarship, and today, in 2026
In Thanh Binh commune in Tay Ninh province, Loi was a slim boy with a gentle smile and bright eyes, the youngest of four siblings. To keep all four children in school, his parents took hired work in custard-apple orchards far from home. They would be away for four or five days at a time, sometimes a full week, before scraping together enough to come home and care for the family.
His eldest sister, only a few years older, took on the housework and looked after the younger ones in their parents’ place. When she left for university, that responsibility passed to the third sister, and the four of them carried each other through the long stretches when their parents were away.
Not wanting their children to inherit lives in poverty, Loi’s parents were determined that all of them would go to college. Because the siblings were so close in age, for years the family had two or three of them in university at the same time, and every day became a struggle to survive. By the time it was Loi’s turn, his parents’ strength after years of hired labor had worn thin. They were faced with having Loi abandon school so he could work and provide his income for the family. That was the moment a scholarship from our partner, Saigon Children’s Charity changed Loi’s path forever.
The $300 annual scholarship covered Loi’s tuition through secondary school and doubled to $600 a year once he reached university. It enabled him to study without the constant fear that tomorrow he might have to drop out.
"In those hard days, the scholarship helped me understand that there are still many good people out there ready to reach out a hand," Loi says. "It lifted my spirits enormously, and it told me I wasn’t alone."
The sweetest harvest
In 2017, he graduated in Civil Engineering from Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology. His work as an engineer has since taken him to several countries and widened his view of the world, and through all of it he came to see that the place he most wants to build his career is Vietnam. And eight years on, the boy from "the most run-down house in the hamlet" has bought a plot of land and built his parents a solid new home.
Busy as he is, Loi returns every year to our partner to see the students receiving scholarships like he once did, bringing his own voice and his own "house with five coconut trees" story to encourage the students coming up behind him.
“Just start. Don’t wait for everything to be clear before you act; act, and things become clearer. Amid all the crossroads and uncertainty of being young, don’t be afraid. Choose a job that gives you an income and steadies your life first. Once your finances are solid, following a passion later becomes much easier."
