Viet Anh (Photo: tienphong.vn)
During the days when school is closed to avoid the COVID-19 epidemic, Giap Bui Viet Anh, a 12th-grade student of Luc Ngan 1 High School in Bac Giang province, and her friends are busy looking after the fanpage to promptly provide latest information relating to COVID-19 pandemic to foreigners. Important information appearing on television and newspapers is translated into English in less than one hour.
Viet Anh’s idea of setting up the fanpage comes from the number of foreigners in Vietnam infected with or at high risk of infection with the disease, but they have limited access to reliable local information.
“In order to avoid fake news, I feel that I need to do something more practical and specific to help them capture the information, thereby raising awareness of protecting public health. Instead of discriminating against them, why don't we help foreigners quickly grasp the epidemic situation in our country,” Viet Anh said.
Viet Anh works while studying. The difficulty she faces is to translate from Vietnamese into English to ensure accurate, clear and easy to understand news.
"Exact translation is one thing, but the big challenge is putting it in a suitable style for native speakers. Therefore, I have invited some friends, who are from UK and the US, to consult and assist," she said.
Fanpage currently has 8 members, who are responsible for management and writing statuses for the page. Five of them are students in different cities and provinces across the country, and three are foreign advisers. The members of the group all exchange and work online. On average, her group makes 5-7 posts in English relating to COVID-19 pandemic in Vietnam daily on the fanpage.
Currently, the fanpage has more than 10,000 “likes” and more than 11,000 followers from many countries./.