Thirteen-year-old Hoa* lives with her parents and in brother in the Hoa Binh Province in Vietnam. Her home is built on a hillside, isolated from the rest of the village. The family home is poorly built with no doors and no bathroom and provides little safety and comfort for the family.

Hoa’s family relies on selling vegetables, snails and crabs at the local market and her father is a farmer. Making ends meet is difficult and both her parents live with mental health illnesses.

Life at home wasn’t always safe for her and her brother. While she spent most of her time alone, the times her father was present he would often threaten and scold the children. This made her feel scared and lonely.

On the way home from school one day, Hoa was struck by a motorbike driver and her leg was severely injured. Unfortunately, her parents couldn’t afford medical treatment. But their community rallied around the family and paid for her hospital fees.

One year later, she had to go back to have pins in her leg removed but because her parents couldn’t afford it. Now when the weather cools, her leg aches and she can’t walk to school. With no other transport options, she was forced to leave school.

ChildFund Vietnam’s project ‘Improving Child Protection System Effectiveness’ worked with local authorities and communities to intervene and provide urgent support to Hoa and her family. Child protection workers visited the home to talk to her and her parents about child safety and how to manage conflict.

The project also provided funding for Hoa to have the pins in her leg removed so that she could regain full mobility and walk to and from school without any pain. Finally, working in partnership with a Water and Sanitation Hygiene (WASH) project and help from the Youth Union, they built a private bathroom and built doors in the home. 

Now, Hoa is back in school and child protection workers often visit the home to make sure that she and her family are safe and healthy.

Hoa says she feels safer after the visits from the child protection workers. She now has the skills to respond to conflict in the home and knows where to find help if she is in an unsafe situation. The newly built toilet and walls give her a sense of safety and privacy.

“I am very happy to be free of pain in my legs and that I can go back to school. Now I feel like I have brighter opportunities in my future,” said Hoa.

You can help children like Hoa to receive the support that they need by donating monthly to ChildFund Australia. You’ll help to give 1,000 children a better life through your donation, providing them with the essentials in health, education and safety.

Learn more about ChildFund Vietnam.

*Names have been changed to protect privacy.

Online safety for children and young people is a global priority for ChildFund Australia. Today is Safer Internet Day sand this year’s theme is ‘Together for a Safer Internet’. In 2022, ChildFund worked with local partners to launch a global online child safety campaign.

As part of this campaign, ChildFund wrote a new interactive SwipeSafe training package for young people, parents, and professionals in Asia who are grappling with online risks.

Fifteen-year-old Hien (pictured left) from Vietnam is one of 33,000 young people in Vietnam who’ve taken part in the SwipeSafe training.

After taking part in the SwipeSafe training, Hien went on to take part in the ASEAN-ICT Forum about child protection online in November 2022.  

“In terms of knowledge, I am confident in what I know,” said Hien.

It is vital that children and young people know how to stay safe online. Being online brings a wealth of opportunity such as access to education, communicating with friends and loved ones, exploring new information, interests, and ideas.

With the onset of COVID-19, more and more children and young people were relying on the internet to socialise with their peers and learn online. This put them at a higher risk of Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (OCSEA) and other forms of online child exploitation.

Because of the SwipeSafe training, more children and young people like Hien can feel safe using the internet – and reap all the benefits that the online world has to offer. The training will now be rolled out across Southeast Asia and the Pacific in 2023.

“Since the internet is permanent, harmful content will always exist and it impacts young people who accidentally encounter it, so it is necessary to have the participation of moderators to remove this type of content,” said Hien.

ChildFund has been working across the Asia region for more than 70 years to protect children from all forms of violence.

Learn more about ChildFund’s SwipeSafe program.