2,000 Vietnamese walked together this weekend to save our planet.

Whoa! Hong, our friend in Vietnam, joined an event in Hoi An Ancient town to help kick off a global day of action this weekend with a 2,000 person walk through the town. Hong was so inspired she woke up at 4am this morning to catch me on skype and send me an article and beauftiful photos from the event.

Despite the heat under the blazing sun, the happy walkers walked through the beautiful streets of the ancient town, holding their banners and joyfully shouting environmental messages, “For Hoi An without pollution”, “For Hoi An saving energy”, “For Hoi An with more trees”, “For ecological Hoi An”. The enthusiastic voices of the environment lovers were concerted by cheerful sounds of the traditional drums loaded on the escorting cyclos – the environmentally friendly means of transportation especially favored by tourists visiting Hoi An. Being excited by the street dances and drumming sounds, tourists of various nationalities wandering the town came to join the group.

Full article below:

Go Green Club’s Walking Day calls for everyone’s action to protect the environment

Over 2,000 people joined a walking event in Vietnam’s Hoi An Ancient Town last Sunday, 26 September 2010. The event, “Hoi An Walking Day for Environment”, organized by Go Green Club (GGC), aimed to raise public environmental awareness, especially among young people, and call for personal actions to protect the environment. The event was also the GGC’ response to the global 350 campaign, as this massive walk clearly demonstrated the participants’ effort to strive towards the global goal to reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from its current level of 390 parts per million to below 350 ppm, the safe upper limit according to the latest science.

Being organized for the first time in the UNESCO World Heritage Hoi An Ancient Town, in coordination with Quang Nam Provincial Department of Culture Sports and Tourism, Hoi An People’s Committee, and Hoi An’s Center for Culture and Sports, the event was attended by some top provincial government leaders, local journalists, and representatives of civil societies. Of course the major forces of the group were the 1,500 students, 200 Toyota staff members, and more than 300 local residents, workers, and foreign tourists.
After the encouraging speeches by the government VIPs, the young and energetic GGC members “heated up” the atmosphere with their exciting Go Green dances and songs, to kick off the walk. Selected members from Go Green Clubs from Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang played the role of the core teams leading and cheering up the walking groups.

With this fun walk, Go Green Club aimed towards a clean and green environment for this one of the most beautiful towns in Vietnam by promoting green lifestyle among the local people and tourists. Mr. Tsuyoshi Awai, Marketing Director of Toyota Motors Vietnam, said: “With the simple wish to create a dust-and-fume-free day for Hoi An, through which to enhance the public environmental awareness, the Walking Day was organized as an opportunity for people to experience, exchange, and get inspired about changing their life habits to reduce impacts on the environment.”

Being invited to be the inspirational figure and MC for the event, Ms Hong Hoang, an environmental activist, a volunteer of 350 campaign, said “With this amazing activity, Go Green Club is truly a leader in inspiring other organizations in Vietnam to join the global 350 campaign. The current climate crisis can only be solved when every single person is aware of their responsibility and takes action. The walk did not only promote green transport as a way to reduce carbon emission, but also symbolized the fact that anyone can do a small thing to protect the environment.”

The walk had been registered as one of the thousands of 350 events taking place in every corner of the planet, as GGC wanted to join hands with the global communities in the fight against climate change. During the event day, volunteers helped to deliver 350 messages to Hoi An residents and called for their participation in the Global Work Party on 10/10/10.

“We are happy and proud that this walk is our small contribution to the global movement to tackle the most serious environmental problem. We hope that this idea will be adopted by other organizations and in other cities in Vietnam, so that the younger generations will live in a safer, healthier environment in the future,” Mr Awai added.

Go Green Club is the key component of the Go Green Program, implemented by Toyota Motors Vietnam in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Training and the Vietnam Environment Administration. After two years of operation, the Go Green Club has attracted over 2,000 young members, and implemented dozens of high-profile environmental awareness campaigns and projects, such as the Eco Bag Campaign, the Drawing Festival to create a Record Collage of Environmental Paintings, made by over 400 volunteers from 20 environmental clubs, and the Green Lifestyle Festival attended by 3,000 people, just to name a few. Go Green Club also joined hands with other organizations in many events, such as the Tree Growing Day organized by the Environmental Police, the “No Fume Day”, the “Recycling Day”, the Earth Song event. With presence and successful activities in Northern, Central and Southern Vietnam, the Go Green Club has become one of the most successful environmental clubs in Vietnam, contributing tremendously to the environmental communication cause in the country.

You can contact Ms Hong Hoang directly here: [email protected]