Blog

Phát triển cộng đồng, Phát triển kinh tế
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Economic Update: A Snapshot of Vietnam’s Macroeconomic Situation

When you’re dedicated to poverty reduction and community development, it’s important to keep up with the latest economic headlines. Economics, poverty, and development often go hand-in-hand, whether it’s through creating stable employment or through sculpting an ecosystem that gives budding entrepreneurs a chance to start their own enterprises. The relationship between the three isn’t always simple, but they’re all highly dependent on one another.

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Sức khỏe
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Vietnam’s Enduring Tuberculosis Problem

Most people living in developed countries think of tuberculosis as a disease of the past–the mal de vivir that afflicted 19th century poets and factory workers, but no longer weighs into modern life.

Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. Each year, over 8 million people are affected by tuberculosis and 1 million end up succumbing to the disease. What was once dubbed as a “romantic disease” is now a “disease of poverty”: of the 22 countries identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as high-burden tuberculosis countries, all are “developing countries.” Six are in Southeast Asia. Vietnam is one of them.

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Phát triển cộng đồng, Thiên tai
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Mangrove Forests: The Key to Managing Disasters and Boosting Income in Vietnam?

Flooding in Vietnam (2011)

May is the start of the rainy season in Vietnam. Although heavy rains are often necessary to replenish the soil and renew the land, they also pose serious flooding risks that ultimately disrupt many livelihoods and leave people in a precarious position. Just this week, a cyclone wreaked havoc in Vietnam’s Lao Cao province, uprooting more than 100 trees, inundating the land and blowing the top off of 35 homes. According to Prevention Web, Vietnam ranks 4th of 162 countries in flood risks, 10th of 89 countries in cyclone risks and 12th of 76 countries in tsunami risks.

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Dự án, Xây dựng trường học
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Project Update: Getting to Know Son La and the Benefits of Education

It’s hard not to be awestruck by the natural beauty of Son La province. Bordered by Laos to the South and Yen Bai, Lao Cai and Lao Chau provinces to the north, Son La is Vietnam’s 5th largest province.  The weather is temperate and roughly 80% of its land is mountainous, making it a hiker’s paradise.

Sweeping valleys

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Từ nhân viên, Tình nguyện viên
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We Moved Offices!

VNHELP has a new home. Over the weekend, we moved down a floor to a different suite in the same building. Our new suite is more spacious, so now we have more room to greet visitors and display the different projects we’ve worked on in Vietnam. Do come by and say hi!

Special thanks to some truly wonderful volunteers who came by and helped us with the move. They were: Steve, Bill, Annie, and Dan of the local scouts; Khoa, a long time volunteer; and some of our staff’s family members. Although it was just one floor down, we really couldn’t have lugged down all that heavy furniture without them. VNHELP has the best volunteers, hands down.

Dự án, Xây dựng trường học
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A New School in Vietnam’s Son La Province

Clack, clamp, scrape. Clack, clamp, scrape. The sound of a shovel dragging up against the dirt. On a warm April afternoon, a team of men are at working leveling the hilly grounds of Son La  province. They move with methodical precision, making sure the land is pat and the bricks are laid out tightly atop each other.

Here, a school will be built.

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Gây quỹ
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VNHELP @ UC Santa Cruz’s Charity Show

A big thank you to UC Santa Cruz’s Vietnamese Student Association for selecting VNHELP as the beneficiary for their 6th annual charity show. We’ll be at UCSC on May 13 to speak a little bit about our mission, our projects, and what drives us to work on behalf of Vietnam’s poor. The event starts at 7:30 p.m. and will also include performances from various UCSC student groups. You can view the event page here for more details and ticket information. Please come and join VNHELP in the festivities. It’s Mother’s Day on the 13th, so bring your moms for a fun-filled evening!

Gây quỹ, Dự án
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Yahoo! for Clean Water in Vietnam

VNHELP is proud to announce that we’ve been selected as a $5000 “quick-grant” recipient by the Yahoo Employee Foundation. $5000 is the maximum awarded for quick grants. The Yahoo! grant will go towards funding our clean water projects in Vietnam.  With so many of Vietnam’s rural poor still obtaining water from unsanitary sources, ensuring that all citizens can access clean water for their consumption and living needs will be a challenge for Vietnam’s future development. So thank you Yahoo! and Yahoo! employees, for enabling VNHELP to connect poor households with the water they need to live healthy, productive lives. Rest assured that someone’s life will change for the better as a result of your generosity.

Từ nhân viên
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Greetings from VNHELP

Hello friends,

2012 has been a rollicking year for VNHELP so far. We started construction on a new school in Kien Giang in January, launched another round of our vocational training program in February, and started looking at how we can expand our microfinance programs to help Vietnam’s poor–all while continuously screening new proposals and planning events in the States.

In the midst of all these activities, we took a look at our website and decided it was time to modernize our online presence. We want you to be able to better understand and keep up with VNHELP’s volunteering and donor opportunities, and one of the most effective ways to do this is by strengthening our web platforms. The main site will stay functional as we work on it, but we decided to start this blog as a way to keep in contact more frequently and more regularly.

So keep posted for a cleaner VNHELP.org, visit our blog, and like us on Facebook for even more VNHELP updates!

Cheers