Or:
Humanity Against the Atrocities of War!
For me, everything began with a Vietnamese duck, prepared for friends in our home by Monika & Markus Seidt.
Markus is a former InterFace employee. He came to us directly from TUM as a computer scientist. After a few years of system programming, he discovered his love for design and communication and took over marketing at InterFace. To this day, the nicest IF-news are those that were written in his time.
Then he founded föhnsturm. One of his hobbies is Asian cuisine, which is why he designed the most refined of all Wok burners I know. Today, he produces it himself and sells it around the world.
Through his love of Asian cuisine, he met Francis Van Hoi, who is an expert when it comes to Vietnamese cooking. The duck meal was organised by Monika and Markus as a fundraiser for Francis Van Hoi’s humanitarian mission of Agent Orange children.
I was there and learned about the life of Francis. He is Vietnamese. As one of the “boat people”, he fled the atrocities in Vietnam in his youth. In Germany, he made his way successfully by founding his own enterprise.
On November, 15th, Francis will leave Germany for good.
He will break down all bridges. Asked about himself, he says that he has been very lucky in life. And that he wishes to give back some of this luck.
In Germany, he was always doing just fine. He spent many happy years with his family in this country. His children are now grown up. All this makes him grateful. So now he wants to reciprocate.
For the last phases of his life, he will go back to Vietnam, where he will look after Agent-Orange victims. Vietnam is the country with the highest per centage of handicapped people world-wide. To this day, many children suffer – sometimes most severely – from the consequences of the treacherous poison Agent Orange.
He also bids farewell to his own family and friends. This is a huge sacrifice, both for him and his family. Yet they respect his decision and stand behind him.
Francis wants to help especially the children. His motto is: “Help through Self-Help”! In order to do this, he will need financial support and tools.
Markus and IF-blog will support Francis. In addition to this, Francis will tell Markus on a regular basis about his experiences in Vietnam by sending both texts and pictures. And Markus will publish them in the IF-blog.
And we hope that we will succeed in making some of our readers and friends sympathetic towards helping Markus and Francis and through them the still countless victims of Agent Orange. I am glad about Francis and Markus reporting regularly from Vietnam about their progress in the future.
RMD
(Translated by EG)
P.S.
The pictures were all taken by Markus during his “duck party for a good cause”. Many thanks to Markus for permitting publication! Markus is the young gentleman wearing the striped shirt and Francis is easy to make out, anyway.
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