HÀ NỘI — First prize of the Young Francophones Reporters – Việt Nam 2018 — a writing contest in French language held by Le Courrier du Vietnam (CVN) a weekly French language newspaper under Vietnam News Agency, was awarded yesterday to Đào Phương Loan, a student from the Hà Nội University.

Loan won for her reportage titled Les Jeunes Vietnamiens Face des Desours de Haine sur Facebook about Vietnamese youth under the impacts of negative words on social networks, particularly, Facebook.

She received the prize at an award ceremony held yesterday in Hà Nội by the CVN.

Entitled “The Power of Words” the contest aims to encourage young people to use the beauty and richness of French language to write about Việt Nam.

Through their articles, the writers, many of whom are young students, have expressed their feelings, points of views and comments and introduced to the French-speaking community Việt Nam’s beauty, culture and people.

The contest was sponsored by the International Organisation of La Francophonie (OIF), the Embassies of France, Switzerland and Morocco, the Francophone Universities Association (AUF) and the Wallonie-Bruxelles Delegation in Hà Nội.

It was also supported by the Việt Nam National Assembly, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other international organisations and diplomatic agencies that use the French language in Việt Nam.

The contest attracted attention from young writers, particularly university students learning French throughout the country, as well as young foreigners who live and study in Thailand.

Organisers said 20 among a total of nearly 90 entries had been selected for the final round.

These works had been published in Le Courrier du Vietnam online at https://www.lecourrier.vn and recorded nearly 20,000 readers’ likes.

Editor-in-chief of the newspaper, Nguyễn Thu Hà, who is also a head co-organiser of the event, said the third contest’s results had met all its targets of promoting the movement of teaching and learning French in Việt Nam.

Hà said the contest had also met its targets of diversifying the contents of news and stories in the context of serving for the national foreign affairs, introducing the country, its culture and people to the community of 88 French speaking countries and territories and especially creating a playground for young people studying French.

Meanwhile, Eric-Normand Thibeault,  Director of the OIF Asia-Pacific Regional Bureau and also a head co-organiser of the contest was impressed at the writing quality this time saying that young writers through their works had brought in different angles of life in Việt Nam.

"Young people brought us diverse perspectives about Việt Nam with their aesthetics, emotions and questions about changes that they face today while observing life around them," said the OIF official.

Vương Bạch Liên, one of the contest judges said she was also impressed with the themes of this year’s contest which ranged from culture, tourism, gastronomy of Việt Nam to burning social problems in the country’s society.

“Many articles are written in good French and have a good style,” said Liên.

Liên believed in the importance of the contest saying it provided an opportunity for Vietnamese and foreign participants to express their feelings, emotions and points of view about the country, while highlighting the richness and diversity of the French language.

“It offers chances for contestants to familiarise themselves with journalism as well as to introduce Việt Nam’s culture and people to the community of 80 Francophonie countries,” according to Liên who used to win the first prize of the contest in 2016.

She hoped this contest would be more widely promoted by social networks and media, and meetings of the organisers with students in different universities in Việt Nam.

“It will probably encourage more and more young people in Việt Nam to learn French and help Việt Nam strengthen its active role in the Francophonie in the future,” said Liên. — VNS