Mass walk «Cùng Việt Nam tiến bước 2026» (Forward with Vietnam)

   Morning at Quảng trường 29 tháng 3 this Sunday starts before daylight: by half past five more than three thousand people in red star-emblazoned shirts gather here to cover a loop of about a kilometre. The distance is short enough for a child, and any resident or visitor to Da Nang can simply turn up.

   For the second year running the walk is run by Nhân Dân newspaper and the Ministry of Public Security, marking the 81st anniversary of the August Revolution and of National Day. The goal is set as a number: 10 billion steps nationwide and a Guinness World Record claim for the largest number of localities joining an environmental walk at once. Guinness representatives are coming to verify the result in person, and the data has to be certified by an independent party.

   The city team has built the morning like this:

• — gathering at Quảng trường 29 tháng 3 in Hòa Cường ward from half past five;
• — at six all 34 provinces and cities watch the national flag-raising on Ba Đình Square together and sing the anthem;
• — at half past six the column sets off around the square, and walking continues until eight.

   Every commune and ward in the city opens its own venue in parallel, each mustering at least two hundred people at a convenient public spot. Four wards are the exception: Hòa Cường, Hải Châu, Ngũ Hành Sơn and Hòa Xuân hold nothing of their own because their people go to the main venue. The city police may close or redirect traffic on individual streets if needed.

   A year ago 1,112,336 people joined the live venues across the country, mountain communes of Da Nang among them, while the online counter added another 261 million steps. By the evening of 25 August the programme portal held more than a hundred thousand registrations and almost half a billion steps.

   The route is short and undemanding, which is why the column is full of families with children, schoolchildren and older residents. Organisers ask people to wear red and trainers; registering online is not a ticket, it is how your steps reach the national count. Interactive spaces on green living and Net Zero targets run alongside the walk, and that is where personal pledges on sorting waste and saving power are signed.

   Waking at five for a kilometre on foot looks like a poor trade right up to the moment you are inside that column — and then the trade turns out to be a very good one.