The Vietnam women’s team donates water to Bao An Temple in New Zealand
Before saying goodbye to New Zealand with a memorable 2023 World Cup journey, the Vietnam women’s team donated to a Vietnamese pagoda in Auckland all the unused bottled water, remaining after the 2023 Women’s World Cup.
08/08/2023 11:54:30
The Vietnam women’s team has finished the journey of the World Cup 2023 with many valuable lessons. The defeats against the world’s top strong opponents help Huynh Nhu and her teammates understand where they are, and how to make efforts to gradually narrow down the gap. Besides, Vietnamese football also sees a way to raise the level of internal strength for the women’s national team.
Besides the professionals, the Vietnam women’s team also left beautiful images on and off the pitch, during the journey in the tournament cities in New Zealand. It is not only the effort and resilience when competing, but also the volunteering activities of coach Mai Duc Chung’s team, before returning to the country.
Accordingly, the Vietnam women’s team donated Bao An Pagoda – one of the four famous Vietnamese temples in Auckland city (New Zealand) with all unused bottled water. This is the number of water granted by FIFA for teams to use during training and competition at the FIFA Women’s World Cup. After finishing the journey on the group stage, the Vietnam women’s team decided to spend the rest of the water bottles on meaningful activities. This action has received consent and support from FIFA and the tournament organizers.
Bao An Pagoda is one of four Vietnamese temples in Auckland, New Zealand. This is also a place for the Vietnamese community here to have a place to go to worship Buddha and remember the home together. Unlike the pagoda in Vietnam, Bao An Pagoda and most Vietnamese pagodas in New Zealand are only open on Sundays. On this day, Buddhists come to the pagoda not only to worship but also to participate in other activities of the pagoda. In particular, at noon, the pagoda will organize a free vegetarian meal for anyone who visits.
In particular, besides being the center of religious and cultural activities of Vietnamese people in New Zealand, Bao An Pagoda is also a place to preserve and spread the Vietnamese language. Regularly from 2-4 pm every Sunday, nearly 30 children regardless of religion and nationality gather at the pagoda to learn Vietnamese.
This activity not only supports the community in preserving its cultural identity and traditions but also contributes to popularizing and spreading Vietnamese language and Vietnamese culture abroad.
