Visite Orphanage of Vung Tau

Today, I traveled with Minh Trang, a further Board member of Aide au Vietnam to Vung Tau, to do some shopping for the Orphanage of Vung Tau and the Centre of Long Hai. As Minh Trang had not seen the 2 centres yet, it was a new experience for her. We took a bus in Ho Chi Minh at 8:15 A.M. and traveled for 2 hours to Vung Tau, where we were picked up by Mrs. My Huong the director of the Long Hai Centre, and her assistant Trinh.

Shopping was the first task on the list. The payment of books and school material for around a 150 children for 45.800.000 VND, schoolbags and shoes for an additional 36.300.000 VND. Added on to that, comes the payment of tissue (70.000.000 VND) for the fabrication of school uniforms. School uniforms are obligatory in Viêtnam ; Aide au Viêtnam only supplies the tissue, as the centre has it’s own sewing class, thus the students learn by sewing their own uniforms. AAV also aids by paying the annual salary of 60.000.000 VND for a special education teacher, as the center also shelters mentally and physically handicapped children.

All together the annual aid for the centre of Long Hai amounts to 10.000 €  Aide au Vietnam has been supporting Long Hai since 2015.

Summer holidays in Vietnam are still on, so there were few children at the centre, and they were just taking their daily nap. In order not to wake them up, we made a quick visit of the centre, My Huong explaining the different classrooms and activities performed by the cente, to Minh Trang.

After a quick lunch, we headed off to visit the orphanage of Vung Tau, which shelters around 80 orphans, or abandoned children, many of them with handicaps, due to meningitis and/or cerebral palsy. We also met the 11 children, rescued from a pagoda in 2018, where they were living in squalor. In 2018, Aide au Vietnam donated 3.000 € for food, clothes , furniture and toys for these kids. The children have developed well, and now live happily and cared for, in the orphanage. We also managed to see the football field at the orphanage, supported both by « Beetebuerg Hëllëft » and Aide Au Vietnam in 2016.

Due to the intense afternoon heat, no match however was taking place.

After the visit, we grabbed a bus back to HCM at 3 P.M. for a 2 hour trip, arriving back at 5:15 P.M. after a long day.