Việt Nam Needs You

I’m not sure I know why, but I’ve had quite a few inquiries from various people thinking about going to Việt Nam.  I’m not talking about tourists – I’m talking about people who have a deeper interest in the country, and want to do something productive there, or who want to get off the beaten tourist track and see the “real Việt Nam.”  For that reason, I have four different non-government organizations (NGOs) I have personally dealt with, have full faith and confidence in, and am proud to recommend if you want to go to Việt Nam.  All of these groups work in Central Việt Nam.

Think About the Children is the newest organization on this list.  Founder Tom Murray is a veteran whom I had the privilege to meet on his very first trip back to Việt Nam.  Like The Mystery Guest Blogger and I, he fell in love with the people and the country.  During my teaching time in Huê, one of my most enjoyable times was working with Tom to link up his students from the College of Charleston with six Vietnamese students of ours.  I was tickled to see two of my students on the History page of the TBTC web site helping to carry food into an orphanage in Huê.  Tom takes things personally.  During the recent typhoon in Huê, he heard that one of the Vietnamese students’ families had lost the roof of their house.  (Vi is pictured on the right end)  That put the energetic Tom to work.  In short order, he raised the $1,000 needed to replace the roof and had it wired to her.  Think About the Children also works with the Blue Dragon Foundation  to help kids who are trafficked and sent to the big cities to sell postcards to tourists – and kept in virtual slavery.  If you want to see Việt Nam – the real Việt Nam, and you want to see it with a vet, Tom is your man.  I will send you his email if you request it.

MEDRIX.  Not all NGOs in Việt Nam are run by vets.  Bob and La Relle Catherman have an incredibly deep love of Việt Nam – especially in and around the Huê area.  La Relle is the medical person who works with the hospitals in the area.  She put the MGB to work last spring teaching English medical terminology to the physicians of Huê.  She also does a lot of work with health education.  Last spring, she supervised a group of American student nurses doing the public service portion of their degree program as they worked in the hospitals around Huê and in the A Lưới area (what vets remember as the A Shau Valley). Bob is “The Water Man.”  He has developed an inexpensive system to produce safe water and works with the College of Science and the People’s Committee of the province to install systems in schools. If you are a medical type or a technical type, MEDRIX needs you.  And you won’t find two finer people to work with the Bob and La Relle.

Vets With a Mission  is a group we can not only recommend – but have actually worked with.  Our first return to Việt Nam was in the summer of 2002, and we did it with this outstanding group headed by Chuck and Joette Ward.  A major part of their work is to reconcile the people of Việt Nam and the United States, as well as American vets to their experiences.  They do medical trips as well as trips working in conjunction with Habitat for Humanity.  If you are a vet, we can think of no better group to return with than VWAM - - because you will have the camaraderie of being with other vets.  They’ve been doing this a long time – since 1988 when Việt Nam was just beginning to open up.

Peace Trees International  If you want to see more of “The Real Việt Nam”, take a citizen diplomacy trip to Việt Nam with them.  My connection is through Mike Fey, a veteran and a dentist who makes frequent trips.  Peace Trees works in Quảng Tri Province, the site of the old DMZ and still one of the poorest provinces in the country.  Peace Trees does educational work, as well as environmental restoration and de-mining.  Yes, Quảng Tri is full of unexploded ordnance, and people are hurt to this day when a farmer’s plow hits an old artillery shell.

These are all excellent groups you can travel to Việt Nam with and do some good while you’re there.  Obviously, there are lots of other groups, but not all would be suitable as a means to travel to Việt Nam.  Việt Nam has hundreds of NGOs working throughout the country.  One such agency is the Blue Dragon Foundation, run by Australian Mike Brosowski in Hà Nội .  I never met Mike in person, but as a fellow expat blogger, we swapped many an email.  Blue Dragon Foundation and Think About the Children have begun cooperative programs in dealing with the problem of child trafficking in the rural areas around Huê.

But - - if you travel to Hà Nội , you are commanded to eat at KOTO (Know One Teach One), another Australian NGO that provides training in the restaurant and hospitality industry to street kids.  If you eat at KOTO, you will enjoy one of the best meals you’ve ever eaten, and you will have helped another kid learn both an employable skill and self-respect.  Their fund raiser is a Brit, and I’ve swapped many an email with him as he is the author of Our Man in Hanoi.

Travel to Việt Nam if you can – any of the above groups will serve you well.  Can’t go but would like to be involved?  Blue Dragon and KOTO would love your help.

And if you travel to Huê, then you must visit the unofficial hub of NGO activity there.  Go by my friend Cu's Mandarin Cafe for a bite to eat - and meet the other NGO workers in Central Việt Nam.  Tell him Doug sent you.

Comments

[Tom Murray]

Thanks Doug for the compliments. We have a passion to help Vietnamese kids and Think About the Children is building the support to do exactly that.

We welcome any and all who want to help.

[Tom Murray]

The Think About the Children trip this summer is from June 7 to July 4. The cost is $2,593 including air conditioned room, round trip air from Atlanta and all in country travel. The trip has historical, cultural, and enviromental elements while visiting both cities and remote villages. We'll visit HoChiMinh City, Hue, The old DMZ (including bases and battle sites), Hanoi, Da Nang, Hoi An, Ban Me Thout, Da Lat and return to HoChiMinh City before returning home.

We'd love to have you join us.

If I want to volunteer, what kind of work I would do and is there any accommodation provided?

[Tom Murray]

Our work is varied. We taught English on both of our trips in 2005 & 2006. You do not need to be a teacher to teach English the way we do it. We may be assisting in the building of a school this summer. The trip detailed above moves a lot and work is minimal on that trip. It's more informative about Viet Nam today. Whether we are building a school will depend on some more fundraising and the in country permit process. Send me your email and I'll keep you informed. Our trip includes quality accomodations for the entire trip.

Tom Murray

sorry, I was thinking of long term volunteer, from 6 months or more ..

[Tom Murray]

My email is murrayt@cofc.edu. Email me so we have contact. If we get to the point that we're building a school in Viet Nam this summer, we would love your help. The process is expected to take at least 90 days. You could volunteer with us pre-construction, construction and post-construction. We'd provide accomodations. It would be very helpful having someone on site each day of the process.

[gautam b.]

Am a plant physiologist with sound knowledge of value-added agriculture/horticulture, seeking to hook up with NGOs willing to experiment with an extremely high-yielding sugar palm.

Needs chill, dry winters, nights anywhere from 35 to 60 F, days 50 to 70F for best sugar yield; followed by hot dry, then hot wet season. Any such location in northern VietNam?

[Also available to offer ideas for value-added horticulture, although Vietnamese are past masters at this. Still, can offer suggestions about different ecotypes of avocadoes, mangoes, etc.for varied climatic zones and elevations,dwarfing rootstocks, + US sources.]

Would love to see church group or denomination adopt this Palm species for further research, much as the leguminous 'drumstick', Moringa oleifera, has been chosen by a Protestant world food mission (not sure about the exact name, something like Church World Service?) as its target plant for Africa. Money for such already floating around USDA etc., can show how this can be re-directed to mainstream research that is win-win for USA and developing countries. Need voices, is all.

[Thien Hoang]

Doug,

I myself just recently got back from Hue. My dad side of the family resides near Rho Ren Bridge. After more than a decade of being away, I do not realize how much Hue has changed. Most for the best, and some for the worst. However, there is one thing that bothers me the most is the living conditions of the children from poor families, and the orphans.

It's pretty heartfelt when you see many kids (not older than 9 or 10), walk the streets to sell lottery tickets, or other random goods. And then you see many run around their in ragtag clothes asking for money. Something just doesn't feel right when I see these pictures.

One of my aunt-in-laws is a school teacher in Hue, and she often related stories about the orphan kids that attend her class. She would ask them "do you know where you came from?" or "how did you end up at the orphanage?” etc. There is one particular answer that photographs itself to my memory; "When I was 7, I went with my mom to Cho Dong Ba. She told me to wait here for her as she's shopping for grocery. I waited for a long time, but she never came back. I didn't know what to do or where to go so I waited until the market closed up. One of the vendors didn't know what to do with me so she took me to the orphanage". Since my aunt is teaching fourth grade, and this kid is currently attending her class, I'm pretty sure this was no more than 3 years ago. From the expressions I got from my dad and my aunt at the time, I realized stories like this are the norm for the orphans in Vietnam. Sad but true…

Anyway, when I came by your page and read your blogs, I envy the fact that you get to live and work in Vietnam. I probly won’t be able to do anything like that, but one thing that I really like to do is to get involve with the Think About the Children organization. Maybe you can advise me on what to do.

Other than that, keep up the good blogs you have going on, and post more pics! My email is shown below, drop me a line or two if you have chance. Later!

Thien Hoang.

[Matrix Catering Equipment]

Doug,

Thank you very much for setting up such a nice blog. It is very informative and very good. Keep it up.

Wish you all the best for your future concerns.

- Matrix Catering Equipment