(VOVworld) – The Pitu Khosa Rangsay Pagoda, also known as Vien Quang  Pagoda, is a home to poor students in the Mekong Delta. The pagoda helps disadvantaged students, especially when a university or college entrance exam is held.

Pitu Khosa Rangsay Pagoda (Photo: dtinews)

Visually hidden near Mac Dinh Chi Road, Can Tho City, the Pitu Khosa Rangsay Pagoda has a small campus, an area for monks and nuns, and a two-storey building for students.

Kim Thanh Lam of Tra Vinh province is a first-year student at Can Tho University of Medicine and Pharmacy. Due to the family’s financial situation with a mentally ill father, Lam was invited to come and live at Pitu Khosa Rangsay Pagoda, where he was welcomed and made to feel at home.

Lam expresses his happiness “to stay at the pagoda and be provided with food to continue my studies. If I had to rent a guest-house, I would not have enough money to study anymore.”

Sharing the same plight, Danh Dat Minh, a third-year student of the construction faculty at Can Tho University, is from Bac Lieu province. His family is happy their son has been admitted to the university but extremely worried that they can’t afford his education. Chief Monk Ly Hung heard and agreed to let Minh stay at the pagoda while a student.

Minh says that “the monks’ assistance has helped me save money. Without the monks’ support, my studies would be interrupted.”

The pagoda has helped hundreds of poor students in Mekong Delta provinces for years. (Photo: dtinews)

 

Lam and Minh are two of more than 600 disadvantaged students in the Mekong River Delta region, who have been helped by Superior Monk Ly Hung. Hung says he himself experienced hardship and received support from the pagoda’s monks and management board to study.

He wants to reciprocate that kindness, recalling that “in the past when the life of Khmer ethnic people was very difficult many disadvantaged families found it hard to afford their children’s education. As a token of gratitude to the pagoda for helping me, I decided to provide poor students free accommodation and meals.”

Each year since 1996 Superior Monk Ly Hung has invited 50 male students with financial difficulties who are attending universities to live in the pagoda.

At first only a few young people could stay at the small pagoda. Then a dormitory was built that can accommodate up to 60 students.

Ly Xinh, head of Can Tho province’s ethnic affairs department, says the pagoda not only supports poor students, it also teaches them morality, cultural traditions, and the Khmer language.

He speaks highly of “Superior Monk Ly Hung’s active participation in charity and humanitarian activities and calling on Buddhist followers to donate in kind to help disadvantaged people. He has paid special attention to the education of young people who don’t have enough money to go to school.”

Many of the students who have been supported by Superior Monk Ly Hung and his pagoda have gone on to successful careers after graduation.