The stage of the 2024 Vietnam Outstanding Young Faces Award ceremony recently became a place of profound silence and overwhelming emotion as everyone listened to the story of martyr Tang Ba Hung’s family.

In September 2024, after a massive storm brought heavy rain and flooded roads, making travel impossible, Hung set out on a mission to assist people. During this effort, he was tragically electrocuted and sacrificed his life.

Before his passing, Hung’s wish was to take a family photo. The storm took his life while the family’s dream of having a shared picture remained unfulfilled. Yet, during his lifetime, Hung rarely took photos and left almost no images for his wife and children to hang in their home as a keepsake.

Upon receiving a call for help from Nguyen Thi Huyen (the wife of martyr Tang Ba Hung), Phung Quang Trung, the leader of the Skyline photo restoration youth group, met her and agreed to help fulfill the family’s wish.

“Whether in time of war or peace, these are immense sacrifices. In peacetime, sacrifices happen so suddenly, and surely there are many unfulfilled wishes and desires,” Trung said. explaining the motivation driving his team.

But it was difficult work. The photos provided by the family were very blurry, so Trung and his team had to work tirelessly, gathering additional information from the family and employing AI to restore the images.

In the end, Phung Quang Trung and the Skyline team could give Nguyen Thi Huyen a restored family photo featuring all four members smiling brightly together. Clutching the longed-for photo to her chest, Huyen burst into tears, overwhelmed by a flood of emotions. The family’s long-cherished dream had finally come true.

This is the type of humane work that Phung Quang Trung and the Skyline youth group (honored as one of the 10 Outstanding Young Faces of Vietnam in 2024) have quietly carried out for many years.

Trung said their work stems from gratitude and appreciation for the heroic martyrs who gave their lives for the independence and freedom of the nation. “We want to spread this message to more young people so they can join hands in this meaningful endeavor, helping the images of many martyrs return home,” Trung said.

Notably, on the ceremony stage, Trung and his team brought a special gift for Hung’s wife and children: a video clip (produced in just 48 hours) created with images of martyr Tang Ba Hung and his voice data processed through AI.

Thanh Hung