That woman was Dr.Maya Ito – Vice Director of the private hospital Ito in Koyaguchi, Wakayama province which is about 600km Southeast from Tokyo.

She said that when being a student, she had a little knowledge of Vietnam in war but she only intended to visit Vietnam after reading a book written by a Danang female author.

She came here and was really moved with what she saw. That first visit urged her to learn more about Vietnam and give a hand to unfortunate children. So the organization of“The Friends and Vietnam”as well as“Doctor Maya Fund”were founded. The two organizations gathered many friends and relatives of her family who love and want to share the difficulties with the Vietnamese poor.

Since, although being very busy with her job and her family, she and Dr. Ito still hold many regular visits to Vietnam. At each time to Danang , she also wants to invite some doctors at Ito hospital or some others concerning about Vietnam to go with. During the time staying here, she and some doctors always have a medical check-up for the poor and orphans. She and her Japanese friends visited and handed over presents for children of Hecman Gmeiner(SOS Village)and Hoa Mai orphanage house of.

Being sympathetic with medical equipment deprivation, she and her colleges mobilized to collect those equipment for Danang health centers. Dentist’s chair, scanners and some medical equipment were equipped for several Danang infirmaries, Especially, she mobilized to give Hoa Binh village a 9 seats-car and give Danang Eye Hospital a ambulance.

Dr.Hiramoto has scheduled to work with Danang Hospital. These doctors have been dedicated to their work and made good impression on their Vietnamese colleagues. She has conveyed her love for Vietnam to other Japanese. Once we visited Ito Hospital, an over 80-year-old patient wanted to see us. Thanks to doctor Maya Ito, he knew that Vietnamese doctors were in here. Due to his bad health, he invited us to visit him at his bed and told us:“help me to give a little sum of money to Vietnamese disadvantaged children”. Not soon later he died… besides her enthusiastic help to Vietnam, doctor Maya Ito paid much attention to establishment and improvement of the Japan- Vietnam relationship. For many times, she has taken his only son to Vietnam to take part in humanitarian activities and to exchange with Vietnamese children with the purpose of making him to understand and love Vietnamese friends. Among the participants of the delegation to Vietnam, there are always Japanese young volunteers regardless of Maya Fund members. They are doctors, nurses, young people working in fields of arts, architecture, fashion design and other students. Though their visit to Vietnam, they have known much about Vietnam and felt very happy to take part in humanitarian activities in Vietnam. Doctor Maya looks very happy when seeing that Japanese girls seem very enthusiastic with charity tasks and like to wear Vietnamese “ao dai”in the days staying in us are extremely happy about that sign and sure that Vietnam-Japan love will be better and better.

Ms. Maya Ito has worried much about improvement of Vietnamese doctors’ knowledge and skill. She has tried her best to create favorable condition for them to visit and study in Japan. Up to now, there have been tens of government workers and doctors in Danang and in other provinces joining this program.

Every times we see her, work with her or talk with her, we perceive her care, her worry on issues related of Vietnamese people’s health especially issues about foods, environment and atom radio actinium. She paid much attention to using glutamate when preparing meals. She also sent us some materials mentioning the harmfulness of atom radio actinium in order to alert issues related to development. In the last July visit to Japan, she and her medical stuffs took us to the forest to see fireflies. It is said that there were no fireflies existing here because of polluted environment. However, environment here becomes better and fireflies develop so much. In Wakayama, people celebrate the firefly festival.
In this festival, we think of our good friends- Ms. Maya Ito and Dr.Ito who bring hope to Vietnam.