Over 300,000 Khmer people in the Mekong Delta province of Tra Vinh to celebrate their traditional New Year festival Chol-Chnam-Thmay

Tra Vinh (VNA)- Over 300,000 Khmer people in the Mekong Delta province of Tra Vinh
will celebrate their traditional New Year festival Chol-Chnam-Thmay in
electricity-lit new houses from April 14-16.

Since its re-establishment in 1992, Tra Vinh has worked hard to carry out State
preferential policies targeting ethnic populations, including the building of
infrastructures to improve production capacity and give the rural area a new face.


Under the water and housing projects for ethnic minority groups, the province has
built 13,182 houses for disadvantaged Khmer households and provided clean safe
water to over 87 percent of rural households at a total cost of 132 billion VND.


The province is striving to realise its goal of 100 percent of Khmer households
having their own houses and over 50 percent of labourers get vocational training
and stable jobs. From 2009-2011, over 20,000 people in 7 districts will get access
to electricity under a joint project with Vietnam Electricity Corporation.

A network of schools has been built across the province, ensuring all children of
school age have access to education.

At primary schools with a high rate of ethnic children, lessons are taught in both
Vietnamese and Khmer language.

In addition, the province built the Khmer Cultural Museum in 1995 to which
preserved over 600 objects of high spiritual and material value to the Khmer
people in general and Tra Vinh province in particular.

The provincial TV-radio station has been running daily programmes in Khmer, and
there is also a weekly as well as bulletins dedicated to the local Khmer
population.-Enditem