“Mom is taking your little sister to the hospital so the doctors can fix her heart.”

Those were the words Ha Linh’s mother whispered to her older son before leaving for Linh’s heart surgery. Even before Linh was born, doctors had diagnosed her with a congenital heart defect. While waiting for his baby sister to arrive, her older brother faithfully said his prayers every night, hoping she would be born safely.

Born at 38 weeks, weighing just 2.6 kg, Ha Linh was as tiny and delicate as a flower bud. Her family of eight lives in a modest home with a limited income. The little savings they had were already spent on childbirth, so the cost of Linh’s treatment soon became far beyond what the family could afford.

Sharing a similar journey is Thien An, a little boy from Ca Mau. At just three months old, his lips and fingertips began turning blue. By the time he was five months old, he was diagnosed with Tetralogy of Fallot. His father works as a local government officer, and his mother is a preschool teacher. Still recovering from financial losses that had affected the entire extended family, they struggled to bear the overwhelming cost of Thien An’s treatment.

Fortunately, both Ha Linh and Thien An were connected with the Scar Of Life program and received life-saving heart surgeries funded by the 73 million VND raised by the Scar Of Life (SOL) Club at Sedbergh Vietnam over the course of one school year.

Following their surgeries, members of the Scar Of Life Club, together with representatives from Sedbergh Vietnam and Scar Of Life, met Ha Linh and Thien An for the first time at City Children’s Hospital. For the students, seeing the two children healthier and smiling was a powerful reminder that every fundraising effort throughout the year had made a real difference.

Vietnam Children’s Fund Social Enterprise hopes that in the years to come, the partnership between Sedbergh Vietnam students and Scar Of Life will continue to grow, so that through their compassion and dedication, more little hearts can be healed, and more children can have the chance to grow up healthy and strong.