Six winners will be presented at the Phan Chau Trinh Awards 2012 including a culture and education award each to educator Bui Tran Phuong and artist Vu Duc Hieu; translation award for Chu Tien Anh and Pham Duy Hien; a research award for Vietnamese overseas professor Le Thanh Khoi and a Vietnamese studies award for French professor Philippe Langlet.

Culture and education awards will be presented to Phuong and Hieu for their contributions to promoting education and preserving Vietnamese Muong culture. Artist Hieu is being recognised for the Muong Ethnic GroupCultural Space Museum, which he set up in 2007. It is the first private museum in the northern province of Hoa Binh and the only museum in Viet Nam devoted to Muong culture.

Graduating from the Ha Noi Industrial Fine Arts College in 2000, the 36-year-old artist’s heart is in the Muong culture. The 2ha museum also hosts community art activities including workshops entitled Art under the Roof in 2011 and 2012.

Last year, the workshop drew over 60 artists from 15 countries. Dr Phuong is the rector of Hoa Sen University in HCM City which was developed from an occupational training school and gathers educators from diverse backgrounds. “Hoa Sen University is now one of the most prestigious private universities in Viet Nam. We decided to present the award to Phuong due to her successful application of educational advanced ideology in Hoa Sen University,” said Professor Chu Hao, one of the 10 jurors.

Phuong is a core faculty member for SIT Study Abroad in Viet Nam. She has lectured on gender and social change for SIT students and has led interactive discussions between SIT and local students at Hoa Sen University. Anh and Hien will receive the award for their translation works which have brought human knowledge quintessence to Vietnamese readers, Hao said.

France’s Khoi and Langlet could not come to Viet Nam to receive the awards due to their old ages. However, a ceremony to award the professors was held in France when foundation chairwoman Nguyen Thi Binh, former vice-president of Viet Nam, was there for other activities.

Khoi is recognised for his research on cultures from the East to the West and Langlet for spending his whole life studying and introducing Vietnamese history and culture.

The Phan Chau Trinh Culture Foundation, run by the Viet Nam Union of Science and Technology Associations, instituted the awards in 2007.

The awards honour national hero, poet and cultural expert Trinh, a native of central Quang Nam Province. Born in 1872, Trinh was a reformer who fought in the resistance movement against the French when he was very young. He devoted all of his life to the country’s modernisation. The award ceremony will be held on Thursday at Rex Hotel in HCM City

VNS