‘Mother Theresa of Vietnam’ Overcame Decades of Homelessness to Help Hundreds of Orphans

In Vietnam, a remarkable woman has adopted 346 children after overcoming a life of incredible hardship which started when her parents left her on a doorstep as a foundling.

Huynh Tieu Huong, whom national media has dubbed “Mother Theresa of Vietnam” runs a non-profit organization dedicated to the adoption, support, and free offering of loving kindness to foundlings, orphans, and homeless children. Thanks to support given by donors and volunteers, these 346 children are all able to receive education, safe places to sleep and play, and the proper medical care to ensure they reach adulthood healthy.

Huong herself doesn’t really know when she was born. An ID found on her didn’t include a surname, but did say 1968. In the years following the war, An old homeless woman dedicated what was left of her life’s energies toward trying to help Huong find a home—which she did in the hands of a young couple from the city of Vinh Phu.

These turned out to be sexual predators, and it took the neighbors to help her escape a permanent fate of sexual exploitation. Her life then became year after year of vagabondry, until she found a baby girl left on her doorstep when she was about 19 years old.

She adopted the child, and in this act of generosity, the universe finally began to smile on Tieu Huong, who met a Chinese man who gave her the money to rent an apartment and start a business. When she could readily support herself and her daughter Anh Dao, she started volunteering at the Vietnam Relief Association in 1993, helping orphans and the elderly.

In 2001 she founded the Que Huong Charity Center in the Tan Dong Hiep Commune, and gradually increased the number of her dependants until it passed the 300 mark: all bearing a surname that Mother Huong received when she was briefly adopted the second time.

She founded the Mother Houng Foundation to support this work, and has begun expanding its footprint overseas to the US.

Volunteers from all over Asia come to hang out and help the children there—for example, on (Vietnam calendar) New Year’s Eve, their Japanese sponsors paid them a visit with gifts and haircuts.

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After surmounting the cruelest hardships in post-war Vietnam, everyone on Earth would understand if Ms. Huong had instead used her success to build a life of luxury, indulgence, and security. Instead, she dove headlong back into the world that made her, making a difference to others in a way that never was possible for her.

Those interested in donating to Mother Huong’s work can do so with a financial contribution or with their time.