{"id":2546,"date":"2017-08-17T11:12:52","date_gmt":"2017-08-17T18:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vnhelp.org\/blog\/?p=2546"},"modified":"2024-12-28T09:58:12","modified_gmt":"2024-12-28T09:58:12","slug":"2011-news-activities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vnhelp.org\/vi\/2011-news-activities\/","title":{"rendered":"2011 News & Activities"},"content":{"rendered":"

July 2011 Vietnam Trip Report<\/h1>\n
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13\/08\/11 09:15<\/p>\n

Our orphanage trip was a great success, even though it only lasted two weeks. We visited eight orphanages, a mental institution (Tr\u1ea1i \u0110i\u00ean), and children at a cancer hospital (B\u1ec7nh Vi\u1ec7n Ung B\u1ee9u). Among the eight orphanages, two of them are the orphanages that we currently sponsor, Thi\u00ean B\u00ecnh and Di\u1ec7u Gi\u00e1c, three orphanages are in B\u00e0\u00a0R\u1ecba, V\u0169ng T\u00e0u, one is in B\u00ecnh Ch\u00e1nh, one is in H\u00f3c M\u00f4n, and another is in H\u1ed3\u00a0Ch\u00ed Minh City. In addition to clothes and basic medicines like Tylenol and vitamins, we donated soccer balls, crayons, pens, and Frisbees to the children.<\/p>\n

In the first week, we organized small feasts at our sponsored orphanges, Di\u1ec7u Gi\u00e1c and Thi\u00ean B\u00ecnh, for the children and care takers. We had a great time enjoying the party and bonding with the children. After that, Kathy Nguy\u1ec5n, one of the volunteers, spent a week at Thi\u00ean B\u00ecnh teaching English, math, and playing with the children. Ch\u01b0\u01a1ng Ng\u00f4, another volunteer, also spent a full day at Thi\u00ean B\u00ecnh with the children. On the other hand, Jessica V\u0169 and her young chidren, spent time with her sponsored child at Di\u1ec7u Gi\u00e1c. It was great to see the bonding and connections among our volunteers and the children. This was not only an opportunity for H4VO volunteers to bring joy to the children, but it was also a great way for the children to learn about H4VO at a personal level. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Kathy, Ch\u01b0\u01a1ng, and Jessica for being great H4VO’s goodwill ambassadors on this trip.<\/p>\n

We are pleased to report there has been a lot of great progress that Thi\u00ean B\u00ecnh and Di\u1ec7u Gi\u00e1c made in the last two years. For example, at Thien Binh, the children receive tutors afterschool to help them with homework. They also are taking full advantage of the computer lab that H4VO donated to them last year. In addition, they have a teacher who comes once a week to teach the middle school, and high school children separately in two group on how to use MS Office applications, such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Each course is one year long, and they plan to add the basic web design and building (HTML) to the existing curriculum.<\/p>\n

We also had the opportunity to watch some of the older kids showing off their vocational skills. Kathy and Ch\u01b0\u01a1ng even sat down with some to learn the art of making flowers. Flowers made by the orphans are sold at the libraries to supplement the orphanage income. A few seventeen years old or older children are enrolled in carpentry and paper mill trainings at the local shops with the potential of being offered jobs there after the training. At Di\u1ec7u Gi\u00e1c, out of the five orphans who recently turned eighteen, one is in a vocational training, three are preparing for the college entrance exam, and one is still undecided.<\/p>\n

Aside from Thi\u00ean B\u00ecnh and Di\u1ec7u Gi\u00e1c, we also visited other orphanages and talked to the administrators for better understanding the needs and the best way for H4VO to extend our assistance to other orphans beyond Thi\u00ean B\u00ecnh and Di\u1ec7u Gi\u00e1c:<\/p>\n