Katy Perry hopes to save impoverished children with Vietnam visit

Katy Perry travelled to a tiny Vietnamese village to learn about the challenges facing an impoverished rural community.

In her role as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations' children's charity Unicef, the 31-year-old pop star visited a settlement in the rural Ninh Thuan Province, one of the Asian country's most impoverished.

Late last month (May16) she met several families who lacked access to full time education and safe sanitation.

"It was heartbreaking to meet a grandmother who was left to care for four grandchildren after her daughter passed away," the Firework tells the unicef.org. "The family lives off a bumpy path in a remote village in the hills, and one of the grandchildren, a five-year-old named Linh, became severely malnourished."

The singer's trip to Vietnam sees her follow in the footsteps of beau Orlando Bloom, whose role as a Unicef ambassador saw him become the first Hollywood star to visit Ukraine's war-torn regions since a conflict between the Ukrainian army and pro-Russian separatist forces began in 2014.

Katy highlighted the work of Unicef's staff on her visit, saying that without their intervention, children in Ninh Thuan Province would struggle to survive.

"If a Unicef-trained outreach worker had not come to the village, and made sure Linh got the care she needed, she might not be alive today," Katy adds. "Linh is one of millions of children who face such challenges every day. That's something we should all be worried about."

The singer, who also visited a school for children with physical and mental disabilities on her trip to the remote village, was keen to emphasise that she wanted those she met to aspire to earning their way out of poverty.

"All the children I met have incredible dreams," Katy shares. "We have to help them fight for those dreams. Investing in the most disadvantaged to give them a fair chance in life is not only the right thing to do, it is the best way to break the cycle of poverty and drastically improve children's health, education and well-being."

The musician, who is currently taking a break from touring, adds, "Unicef works to ensure that every child, urban or rural, rich or poor, has a chance to thrive, to grow and to contribute to their families and communities as well as to have the opportunity to shape the world that we live in."