Ủng hộ bác Hai Chìa 24

24 - IT'S MY BIRTHDAY - LET'S SEND ME SOME GIFTS

I’ve been getting a lot of kind birthday wishes, and it truly warms my heart. Yet, something feels a bit empty and sad this winter holiday season, since an important issue is weighing heavily on my mind. I’ve been thinking a lot about the incredible but heart-breaking story of Uncle Hai Chia.
Uncle Hai Chia and his wife has a garden farm of 2 hectares in Vinh Long, in the southern region of Vietnam. It was a tiny but stable source of income. They survived with subsistence-farming on their small plot, until something miraculous happened 15 years ago—the very first wild birds started visiting and then nesting in their special garden. Instead of treating these visitors as pests that ravaged their garden, they welcomed the feathered friends and avoided disturbing them. Uncle Hai Chia and Auntie saw firsthand the numbers of wildlife and birds rapidly decreasing due to the heavy loss of local natural habitats over the years. Tens of thousands of birds are poached and killed everyday for food, with no safe nesting sites to go. They did not think twice as they made the decision to make more and more room in their garden to create a safe haven for the birds, even as they sacrificed growing food for income. With every new season the number of bird species began growing significantly with their efforts, including highly endangered local species. Incredibly, Uncle Hai Chia and his wife eventually gave up farming completely to dedicate their small farm as a bird sanctuary, their only source of income sacrificed. Against all odds, Uncle and Auntie Hai Chia created a small sanctuary for at least 15,000 birds on their small 2 hectare garden. The birds had found their guardian angels.

Sadly, heaven for birds attracts its share of devils. Over the years, tens of birds poachers sneak onto his land DAILY in the darkness of night and illegally kill and steal the birds from his garden. He would often hear the birds screeching for help when he couldn’t fend off poachers in time. With only sheer will and dedication, he even sleeps in the garden, often fighting with multiple poachers to protect every single bird. Poachers even used rubber bullets to shoot the birds AND Uncle Hai Chia. He’s been wounded many times, his protective helmets even broken. For many years, Uncle Hai Chia never had one good night sleep in his dedication to protect them. However, at least the last 10 years, they have been living under very poor conditions with no proper income, it became a literal daily battle to protect the birds while trying to survive themselves. They decided the best way to help protect the birds long-term was to build a fence to keep out poachers. He went to multiple local authorities, bird foundations, wildlife protection organizations, on multiple occasions, all to no avail. He NEVER got any help from any of them to help the birds or stop the poachers. Even with his big heart, all the responses he got back were, “the garden is too small for consideration.” For 15 years now, he’s been tirelessly fighting on the birds behalf without outside help.

I heard about their story more than a year ago. Both Hai Chia and his wife were very sick at that time, especially with the years of sleep deprivation taking a toll. The situation was so urgent that up to 100 birds were killed per day. I realized they never received any help from anyone, and I can’t sit idly by. I’m just one single individual person without much money or power to help him and the birds. All I could do is ask for help, from my friends, from my network, from you.

I was able to raise around a little bit over $10,000 about 1 year ago. With everyone’s generosity, this was just enough to build a temporary fence around the garden. But it helped so much to prevent half of the bird killings daily. When that new fence was finally built, Uncle Hai Chia called me and cried. He told me he could finally have one good night sleep after all these years. I’m very happy and grateful that at least our effort was meaningful. I don’t expect any personal gain, because the best gift was seeing how we improved their life, and ultimately, our life as stewards of our environment! He is so thankful to all of us.

But age, exhaustion, lack of finances and support, inevitably took a heavy toll on Uncle Hai Chia and Auntie. A few years ago, Auntie Hai Chia was sadly diagnosed with cancer. A few people even came to their house and opportunistically asked them to sell the land with possible bad intentions in their times of desperation. But no matter how poor they got, how serious her sickness was, how hopeless things got, they said they would never sell the land because they are the birds only protectors. After a few years of fighting cancer and poachers, I got the news I’ve been dreading recently—Auntie lost the battle with cancer and passed away 3 weeks ago. So now, even with grief, Uncle Hai Chia still bravely insists on carrying to protect all the innocent birds. And most important of all, the temporary fence at least has helped fulfill part of Auntie Hai Chia’s biggest wish before she passed away. They sacrificed for the birds until the very end.

There are still so many things I’d like to share about them, and my journey with all of you. The road is still very long because we still need so much more money to do so much more in that garden, to build a more permanent fence, one that could protect the birds fully. I hope it will someday become a recognized sanctuary with responsible, professional protection. Hopefully, this will help Uncle Hai Chia live out his last years in peace. My hope is when Uncle Hai Chia passes away, there will be like-minded people to carry out his wonderful work and keep a safe haven for the endangered birds and contribute something to our future environment. Uncle Hai Chia needs all types of help more than ever—from donations, connections, professionals, and support. So this year, I again come to all of you for help on his behalf.

However uncomfortable it may be for me; it needs to be asked to help someone desperately in need. The old couple had been seeking for helps for so many years in vain and they almost gave up in the end, until we helped them.

Yes, so today, on my birthday, I would love to receive gifts from you, my friends, birds lovers, and anyone out there who would like to be a part of this meaningful journey. Please donate anything you can. Every little bit helps greatly. We still need your generosity to build a permanent fence to help the birds survive.

Besides donations, it would be wonderful if any of you, (locally or internationally) can help us to connect with any organizations or sponsors who truly plans to help this garden, turn it into a lasting sanctuary, protected professionally for the long term. One old man cannot do it all, and he cannot do it forever! But together, WE CAN HELP! Please stay and be a part of this journey with me. Thank you again for the birthday wishes! To all my friends, network, and contacts, thank you in advance. Thank you for becoming protectors and paying tribute to beautiful people like Uncle Hai Chia and his wife and help carry their heavy responsibility and inspiring legacy.
Text or message me anytime please!


TO HELP:
1. Here is Paypal: (If you’d like other ways to donate like Zelle, please text me).
wellspchen@yahoo.com
2. To donate directly directly to Uncle Hai Chia’s Vietnamese accounts to support him:
Lê Văn Chìa, Account number: 106873034796. Vietinbank, PGD Trà Ôn, Vĩnh Long
or
Lê Văn Chìa
Agri bank (Ngân hàng nông nghiệp và phát triển nông thôn), chi nhánh huyện Trà Ôn, Vĩnh Long
Account number : 7305205297284
3. You can also donate to our account which my friend helped to set up just for the fence’s donations.
Trần Thị Huệ Phương
Techcombank: 9097237159
All the donations and proceeds will be transparently announced. I might make a GoFundme account on his behalf but I need time and I need help to create it.
Vườn Chim Hai Chìa, Trà Ôn, Vĩnh Long (vuonchimvinhlong.blogspot.com)
Thank you so much for reading this story and... happy birthday to me!
Hashtag: #bác2Chìa