By Project RENEW | April 17, 2026

On a quiet street in Vinh Linh Commune, Quang Tri Province, a small sugarcane juice stall sits in front of a modest home. Every morning, a blind man and his wife begin their day here — side by side, doing what they can, together.

This is the story of Nang and Hien.

A Life Interrupted

Nang was born in 1972 in Tan Dinh Village, Vinh Chap Commune, Vinh Linh District — the youngest of six children in a family of modest means. After finishing ninth grade, he could not continue to high school. Instead, he chose to work — to help carry the weight of his family.

In 1994, at just 22 years old, his life changed forever.

While working as a daily laborer for an electricity corporation, Nang and two friends discovered an aircraft bomb left over from the war. They attempted to destroy the fuze by covering the bomb with dried wood and setting it on fire, hoping to sell the casing as scrap metal. After an hour of silence, they thought it was safe to return.

It was not.

The explosion killed one of his friends instantly. Nang survived — but the blast took away his eyesight permanently. In a single moment, the young man who had worked to support his aging parents became entirely dependent on them.

The Long Road Back

For many UXO survivors, permanent disability means the end of economic independence. For Nang, it became the beginning of a different kind of journey.

He joined the Blind Association and learned massage therapy — a skill that would become his livelihood. At age 30, he opened his own massage therapy room at 26 Nguyen Du Street, Vinh Linh — a small but hard-won milestone. He worked diligently, saved carefully, and eventually purchased his own home.

“Born and grew up as a normal person, I unfortunately had a bomb and mine accident,” he recalls quietly. “I couldn’t have a job and I had to stay at home.”

But staying home, for Nang, was never truly staying still.

A Love Story Across a Thousand Miles

In 2016, through a friend’s introduction, Nang met Hien — a young woman from Can Tho Province in the Mekong Delta, nearly a thousand kilometers away.

Hien had heard about this blind man from Quang Tri. She heard about his resilience, his determination, his refusal to be defined by his disability. And she made a decision that would change both their lives.

“I am a southern person, far away from Quang Tri,” she says, her voice warm and certain. “But knowing his resilience, I really admired him. I decided to make the long journey to join him here.”

They married in 2017. Today, they have a daughter — 20 months old, the quiet center of everything they do.

A New Chapter — With RENEW’s Support

Through RENEW Center’s victim assistance program — funded by the Government of Ireland through the Irish Embassy in Hanoi — Nang’s family received a sugarcane juicing machine, enabling them to operate a small business from their home.

The division of labor between husband and wife is a study in partnership. Nang — who cannot operate the machine — scrapes and prepares the sugarcane sticks. Hien operates the juicer and serves customers. Together, they run a living, functioning small enterprise that serves their neighborhood.

On a recent morning, a customer stopped her motorbike in front of their home and ordered four glasses of juice to take away. It was an ordinary transaction — and an extraordinary testament to what is possible when survivors receive the right support at the right time.

“With the support from RENEW Center and the Government of Ireland,” Hien says, “our family was provided with a sugarcane juicer machine. This helps us earn extra income to afford our family’s needs.”

A Simple Dream

When asked about her dreams for the future, Hien pauses — and then smiles.

“We don’t dare to dream big,” she says simply. “We just dream that our daughter will grow up and study well. That is the greatest source of happiness for both of us.”

It is a dream so modest it could be missed. And yet — for a blind man who rebuilt himself from nothing, and a woman who traveled a thousand miles for love — it is perhaps the most powerful dream of all.

25 Years of Walking Beside Survivors

Nang’s story is one of hundreds supported by RENEW Center’s victim assistance program over the past 25 years. Since its establishment, Project RENEW has worked tirelessly to clear explosive remnants of war from Quang Tri’s soil — and to walk beside those whose lives have already been changed by them.

On this Vietnam’s Day for Persons with Disabilities — April 18, 2026 — we honor not only Nang’s resilience, but the resilience of every survivor who has refused to be defined by the darkness of a single moment.

RENEW expresses its sincere gratitude to the Government of Ireland and the Irish Embassy in Hanoi for their generous and sustained support of UXO victim assistance in Quang Tri Province.

For more information about RENEW’s victim assistance program, please visit: landmines.org.vn