500 Walk to Raise Funds for Refugees : ‘Boat people’: The event was held to raise awareness of the plight of Vietnamese held in Southeast Asian detention camps.

Vietnamese “boat people” are not forgotten.

Carrying placards that read “Human Conscience, Where Are You?” and “Fight 4 Rights,” more than 500 people, most wearing sneakers, staged a walk around Mile Square Park in Fountain Valley on Saturday in support of refugees in Southeast Asian detention camps.

“Our presence here today sends a strong signal that we will not forget our people,” said Dr. Thang Dinh Nguyen, director of Legal Assistance for Vietnamese Asylum Seekers, known as LAVAS. “I call upon all of us here not to abandon the people in the camps. This is no time to give up or give in.”

The second annual Walk-A-Thon for Boat People’s Rights was held to raise public awareness for the plight of the refugees, and the bleak existence they face because of their desire to live in freedom.

“I believe that everybody has the right for freedom,” said participant Quyet Tran, 28, of Garden Grove, who held a sign that read “Stop Forced Repatriation.”

“I believe the injustice in all the camps is not right. It’s not humane.”

Participants sought pledges for the four-mile walk around the park, and the event was expected to raise between $15,000 and $20,000 for LAVAS, said Van Tran, spokesman for the Walk-A-Thon Organizing Committee.

The group sends volunteer attorneys and paralegals to Southeast Asian refugee camps to aid those seeking asylum. Tran said the legal experts help handle appeals for those Vietnamese who were denied refugee status.

Before the start of the walk, the American and Vietnamese national anthems were played. Some wiped away tears as they sang the Vietnamese hymn. A Buddhist monk and a Catholic priest offered blessings in Vietnamese while the crowd of walkers bowed their heads in prayer.

A memorial was made in the grass of 19 red candles encircled in barbed wire, each representing camps in Hong Kong, Malaysia and the Philippines. It was a grim reminder of the refugees’ incarceration and their inhumane treatment. The candles were lit as a symbolic gesture to keep the refugees’ hopes alive.

“It symbolizes the eternal hope that they will find freedom,” Tran said.

There are more than 100,000 Vietnamese refugees being held in camps throughout Southeast Asia, with many facing forced repatriation to communist Vietnam, organizers said.

As the walk started about 10:30 a.m., participants began their protest in song. They sang a hymn that is sung in detention camps about people who risk their lives for freedom.

Walkers were enthusiastic about their protest against the violations of the rights of the boat people.

“I feel I want to do it because they are my people who don’t have what I have,” said Trang Nguyen, 18, of Garden Grove, who was walking with members of St. Callistus Athletic Youth Group, which raised $250.

“I can understand what they go through,” she added. “I was at a camp too. I want to help them as much as possible.”

Khanh Tran, 16, of Garden Grove, also with the group, said joining the walk was the least she could do to help.

“I just felt it was right from the bottom of my heart,” she said. “If I can save one life with this little sacrifice, then my world is made.”

Thi Mai, 25, of Huntington Beach raised $200 himself and walked with a group from St. Bonaventure Vietnamese Choir that collected about $1,100. Mai said he wanted to walk because he wants others to share the freedom he now knows in America.

“I want (them) to have the same opportunity that I have, to go to school or to carry on their future dreams, whatever they might be,” he said.

While walkers were mostly Vietnamese, there were others who share their sentiments about the tragedy of the boat people.

Art Lange of Garden Grove raised $100 and said he participated because he wanted to help stop the pain.

“People are suffering all over the world, and these (refugees)are just some of the people suffering,” Lange said. “I wanted to help.”

Bob Schreider, 52, of Westminster also said he wanted to show his support. “I think (the Vietnamese) have a lot to give this country and they’ve proved it already--you’ve seen it in the professionals and the businesses,” he said.

“I think their cause is just.”