Photographer has a predestined relationship with the highlands, loved by thousands of children

Passion for photography, love the highland people 

Le Quang Long (30 years old) is a freelance photographer from Quang Nam. When he was still in school, Long loved to take pictures.

At the age of 20, unable to find joy in the university lecture hall, Le Quang Long decided to stop. He began to fulfill his passion for travel and photography. Seeing the beautiful scenery of the country, experiencing life in the places I have visited and recording is what Long has always wanted. Long likes unspoiled natural scenes, so he often goes to remote and remote mountainous areas.

“In the process of doing photography, going to remote highlands, I began to meet people and children here. Each person is a story, a different situation, but they all have in common a difficult life situation. Deeply sympathizing with those people, I rekindled the idea of ​​volunteering to help them,” Long said.

The first job Long did to help them was to buy books and gifts for poor children with his own pocket money. Seeing the joy and happy smiles of children, Long realized that he needed to spread the good spirit and needed to share this life so that people with a good heart would know it.

And in June 6, the volunteer group "Green Footsteps" was born. “This is a project focused on helping poor children and workers in the highlands. This project has had the participation of young people who share the same spirit of volunteerism and want to contribute their energies to humanistic and social activities", Quang Long revealed.

Quang Long loves, wants to share difficulties with children in the highlands. 

“The main goal of the volunteer group is to help children have conditions to study and go to school through building schools, building roads, renovating libraries, donating books and notebooks, etc. Besides, the poor working people, The difficult life in remote areas is also the target group of volunteers want to help. In addition, in difficult circumstances, there are incidents or accidents but cannot manage within a certain period of time, which can greatly affect health or the future, the group will also have appropriate help orientations. on a case by case basis”.

Quang Long said that the specific work of the group is to go to poor rural areas, provide meals, free meals, gifts on holidays and Tet, support people to rebuild schools, libraries, roads, etc.

During the operation, the volunteer group always tries its best with the work, sharing difficulties with everyone. Typically, the relief of the central flood area in November 11; campaign "Winter for you" in the areas of Lao Cai, Lai Chau, Ha Giang; The trip across Vietnam brings the "Tet of Love" to the highland provinces...

Currently, the group is carrying out a campaign to build 100 libraries and cook community meals for upland children. Although it has been a long and difficult journey, Long and the group have never stopped.

Each trip is a meaningful journey for Quang Long and his friends. The warm thing is that he sees the smiles of the children, sees their desire to go to school.

 There is still strength to do 

Not only is a photographer specializing in helping poor children, Quang Long is also known for the image of a young man who soaked his children for 15 days in flood water to help people in the Central region in November 11. It is also the image of a young man who is not afraid of the disease, early and late at night delivering free food to the homeless, people in the quarantine area because of the Covid-2020 epidemic.

At that time, Quang Long signed up as a volunteer of many volunteer groups, distributing vegetables, cakes, and rice to epidemic areas and isolated areas, homeless people. The heart of him and his friends in the young volunteer group inspires many people to share and help difficult situations.

Quang Long said, in the process of volunteering, going to high mountains, moving is the top difficulty: "Terrain and weather are important things in each trip. To get to the highlands, me and my friends had to go on a bumpy mountain road, rocky ground, sunny, windy, stormy... quite dangerous. In addition, we also have money to prepare gifts, food, clothes... for the children. However, there are still problems that need to be managed. Preparing food and assigning people to cook is also difficult."

I always hope to see children's smiles, to see them go to school. 

In return, there are certain advantages that make Long feel warm. It is the support of friends, relatives and acquaintances on social networks. They always support the volunteer work of Quang Long group.

“My team has been very thin since its inception. However, over time and the spread on social networks, many friends across the country want to participate. The members of the group just need to make sure they have good health to move in difficult terrain. Above all, it must be someone who wants to share with others," Quang Long said.

In the future, Quang Long will continue to do charity work, helping difficult situations. Long never intended to stop because for him, the ultimate nature of work is sharing. With strength, Long will still do his best.

Quang Long hopes that more and more benefactors, like-minded people, will join hands to help poor children: “A good thing that 1 or 2 people do will still only be a good thing. But if that good is spread to everyone, it will become a good society, a humane and positive society.”

The young man never wanted to stop his passion.

“One day, when I no longer have the health to run the group, I may hand over the management responsibility to another member who is younger, more dynamic and has the same ideals. But I will never stop sharing and helping those around me because this can always be done in so many different forms,” said the volunteer leader.

Photo: Character provided