Notes from the School Yard: What We’ve Done and What We Can Do in the Future

12/28/2024

Hop Bui is a septuagenarian, closer to 80 than he is to 70. But everything about him suggests a man several decades younger. His vigor rivals that of a voyager about to embark on his first global journey, and his mind retains the clarity of youth while enjoying the benefits of a lifetime of experience. As a former award-winning civil engineer, Mr. Hop even now feels compelled to put his professional training to good use. And so Mr. Hop offered to act as VNHELP’s emissary to inspect some of the schools we’ve built over the past 12 years. We gladly accepted.

Over the course of two months, Mr. Hop visited nine schools across southern Vietnam. We’re proud to announce that Mr. Hop found all nine schools to be fully intact and providing a valuable service to their communities. Mr. Hop’s actual report is much, much thicker, but a snapshot of the schools visited can be seen in the column on the left. As you’ll note, X in Y, even raised enough money on its own to construct two additional classrooms.

Which brings us to another discovery of the inspection trip. Although X school represents a true success in its ability to independently raise funds and expand the school, Mr. Hop found that many of the other schools have not yet reached this level of sophistication. When asked what they’d like further assistance with, many of the schools responded similarly:

We want to expand the school to accommodate more students.

We hope to one day eliminate all fees so that our school can be completely free to all students.

We want to provide better salaries for our teachers so that they won’t leave our villages for better paying jobs elsewhere.

Reading through these requests, we realize that new challenges are forever arising. As an organization, we’ve got to innovate to meet them. So, in an effort to continually refine our programs, we’re at work developing a new post-construction monitoring program that will incentivize schools to perform well, with the promise that VNHELP will help them with additional needs, such as providing scholarships to students or raising funds for smaller infrastructure project, if they meet our requirements. This new program will involve a greater study of local needs, but we believe the best programs are the ones wherein the local communities have a say in the direction of their growth. Please look forward to this coming project, and keep an eye out for emerging donor opportunities.

Got an idea you’d like to contribute to our education projects? Interested in how you can help? Contact us! Send an email to info@vnhelp.org.

Special thanks to Mr. Hop Bui for his report on the schools.