ChildFund has been working in Vietnam since 1995 and began community development programs in just one district, in one province. Today, ChildFund works in seven districts across three northern provinces – Bac Kan, Cao Bang and Hoa Binh, where the majority of people are from ethnic minority groups, often the most vulnerable or marginalised sections of the population.
Starting with 220 children in 8 villages, ChildFund Vietnam now helps almost 34,000 children in 488 villages!
Ky Son district is the first area where ChildFund Vietnam began implementing child sponsorship. Ky Son is located in Hoa Binh, a mountainous rural province in northern Vietnam.
When ChildFund began work in four communes in this district, poverty rates were high and there was a critical need for water and sanitation facilities. Preschools and primary schools were in poor conditions and the quality of healthcare was very low, resulting in high rates of child malnutrition.
What has been achieved?
A recent evaluation of our work in these four communes in Ky Son found that ChildFund`s community development programs have contributed to poverty reduction, increased incomes and improved living conditions for children and their families over the past 20 years.
This data shows just how different life is in these communes today:
- Poverty rate has fallen from 30% to less than 5%
- 100% of children now complete primary education
- 100% of children are delivered by a skilled health professional
- % of households with safe water has risen from 26% to 77%
- % of households with a hygienic toilet has risen from 16% to 74%
ChildFund Vietnam country director Deborah Leaver says: “Simply knowing that children and families now assume their children will complete primary school is such a big change in only a generation. With commitment from the community, support from local authorities and hard work from the team at ChildFund we`ve been able to make this massive change in not only the access to education but also significantly improve the quality of their education.
“In less than a generation children`s lives have been changed in a meaningful and sustainable way and that is something to be very proud of.”
Ms Ha, is ChildFund Vietnam`s Education Project Coordinator in Hoa Binh province. She has been with ChildFund Vietnam since day one! We asked her to reflect on her journey:
“My childhood memories are of houses with thatched roofs and mud walls, muddy and rough roads. Then children couldn`t afford to go to school. Families had to worry about every meal and sick people didn`t get proper treatment. Now things have changed for the better. We have better housing and improved roads. Children now can all go to school. Poverty is reduced. People have better access to health care services.
“Working at ChildFund, I have the opportunity to travel frequently to rural areas which resemble the place where I used to live. For 18 years of my life, I lived in the very poor countryside, so I understand thoroughly how poverty affects people`s lives. I always wanted to change the situation even back then. I wanted to work for ChildFund so I could help poor and disadvantaged communities where children were having the same difficulties as me in the past.”
Read about former sponsored child Nhu from Hoa Binh province and find out where they are now.
ChildFund Australia would like to thank all of our supporters who have sponsored children in Vietnam over the past 20 years! Your generous support is having intergenerational life-changing effects on the children and communities we work with in northern Vietnam.
On 16 June the world commemorated International Day of the African Child, a day to honour children`s rights. The continent-wide event ensures no one will ever forget the children who lost their lives in Soweto, then a township in South Africa, on this terrible day in 1976. Their only crime was advocating for the right to education for children in Africa.
International Day of the African Child: The tragic events of 16 June 1976
Sadly, of the thousands of schoolchildren who marched on 16 June 1976 to call for higher-quality education and the right to learn in their own languages, hundreds were shot. The official number of deaths was 23, but estimates put the number much higher.
One of the first casualties, 13-year-old Hector Pieterson, would become the icon of a movement promoting children`s rights. Since 1991, the Day of the African Child has marked this tragedy and served as an occasion to advocate for children’s rights across the continent” and, in particular, for children themselves to raise their voices.
The legacy of the lost schoolchildren lives on
This year, children from seven African countries marched through Soweto from the Mandela House to the Hector Pieterson Monument and Memorial Museum, joined by representatives of the South African government, the United Nations, international non-profit organisations and other official bodies.
During the march, children and others chanted slogans against early and forced marriage, which is this year`s theme for the Day of the African Child: “Don’t talk about us without us!” “Stop early marriage now!” “Girls are not a commodity, do not trade them for money, but send them to school!” Later, children performed dramatic monologues, poems and other speech advocating for children’s rights.
The fight to end forced child marriage
This year, the Day of the African Child is joined with a parallel celebration of this month’s 25th anniversary of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. The charter explicitly calls for all African countries to push the minimum age of marriage to 18, but child marriage” as well as accompanying issues such as early pregnancies and lack of education and job opportunities for young women” remains a challenge throughout Africa, home to 15 of the world’s 20 countries with the highest rates of child marriage.
“We young girls want to be in a school,” said one girl participating in the march. “That is where we belong not to marriage.”
The struggle for access to a quality education
Soweto is not the only site where commemorations were held. In Guinea, which is recovering from the Ebola outbreak, thousands of children, joined by government and aid organisations, gathered on 6 June in Siguiri, a prefecture on the Niger River, to launch Month of the African Child.
Near the site of Guinea`s celebration is a gold mine, and many young children work there, missing school and placing themselves in danger. That was the issue on Mamadou`s (pictured right) mind, and the 14-year-old year-nine student was excited to exercise his right to speak out.
“This moment is an occasion for me to pass messages to parents and even friends,” he said. “In my district, most of the children of my age and even younger are in the gold mine. Some are there through because of pressure from their parents. These children are not attending school. Instead, they spend every day from morning to evening digging hard, rocky ground in search of gold.
“Parents, please help your children to go to school,” he said. “School builds children’s minds and prepares them for tomorrow so that they can be helpful to you.”
He worries about his friends’ thinking that money is the answer to problems. “I am telling them that I agree with them that money is good, but you need to have the education and training to be able to manage money and know how to multiply it,” he said.
As Mamadou has pointed out, choosing money over education is one of the many reasons children can remain trapped in the poverty cycle.
“I tell my friends who have gone to the mine to go back to school for the education and training that will let them manage money, because school builds the mind.”
How you can help children in Africa
At ChildFund, we believe every child should be able to say “I am educated” and “I have a future”. To help us achieve our goal, we need your help.
Donate to our current appeal before June 30th and your donation will be tax deductible, which means you’ll be able to claim it on your tax return. There’s no better time of year to give back, to get back.
If you would like to make an ongoing donation to help children in poverty, you may be interested in sponsoring a child. You’ll donate a monthly contribution to support a child in poverty, which will be used to provide them with school supplies, healthcare, and other essentials. If child sponsorship interests you, learn more about sponsoring a child here.
