Portrait of a family having lunch in Children's Village Mai…
I read that SOS Children's Villages has been active in Vietnam since 1967. I looked into more of the history of our work in Vietnam, which is quite interesting, given the wars and political changes that have affected the country over this time:
- Lisa
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Portrait of a family having lunch in Children's Village Mai Dich, Vietnam.
I read that SOS Children's Villages has been active in Vietnam since 1967. I looked into more of the history of our work in Vietnam, which is quite interesting, given the wars and political changes that have affected the country over this time:
Wars played a prominent part in the history of Vietnam during the last century, with the country enduring no less than three separate conflicts. The effects of this continue to be felt even now and have contributed to Vietnam's low position globally in terms of economic development, standards of living and the development of scientific and technical expertise.
The market-oriented reforms carried out by the Vietnam Government during the mid 1980s brought about considerable economic growth. The progress was hindered by the Asian financial crisis in 1997, though, and the country's manufacturing sector is still having difficulties keeping up with the world market.
In addition, only a portion of the population benefited from the positive effects of economic reform. The disparity between rich and poor and between urban and rural dwellers continues to grow.
Since the poorest families do not have the resources to care for their children, many of these have to live on the streets.
Vietnam was one of the first countries outside of Europe in which SOS Children's Villages became active.
There are eleven SOS Children's Villages in Vietnam, eight SOS Youth Facilities, ten SOS Schools, ten SOS nurseries, one SOS Vocational Training Centre and two SOS Medical Centres.
- Mary
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A blackboard with colourful chalk in a public school in Chengdu, China.
Here is a short account of a school day in China:
A steady stream of children keeps walking in past the gates. It is just a few minutes before 8am and school is just about to begin. In Chinese public schools, there are no school uniforms, but everyone wears a thin red scarf around the neck.In the morning the teachers greet the children and there are lessons and traditional morning exercise to music. The classes begin at 9am and there are 4 periods of 40 minutes before lunch break.
This school is the biggest in the district of Chengdu, a large Chinese city of 12 million situated in mainland China.
It is a rather new building, first opened in 2006, and new facilities such as a big library are still under construction.
40 children from the nearby SOS Children's Village attend class here, including eight-year old Wangdu and eleven-year old Doma, who are brothers and sisters.
Most children live close by and return home to have food at home. Wangu and Doma walk together and reach their home in SOS Children's Village after just ten minutes. Here, their mother awaits them with some hot noodles and left over food from yesterday's dinner.
A little plastic badge on Doma's shoulder shows she is a class leader. She collects the other children's homework and does other useful jobs to help the teacher.
Doma is very proud of being a class leader. She and her brother came to the village only four years ago. They origin from a province with a big Tibetan community and did not speak any Mandarin at the time. "Life was hard before. We were too poor to send me to school," Doma tells. Now the children speak Mandarin fluently and have made good friends with the other children.
The first year in the SOS Children's Village Doma went to nursery even though she was actually too old - just to make sure she could catch up on language and other skills before going to school. She is still one class behind children of the same age, but iscatching up fast.
After lunch the two children head back to the school. School is over at 4.50pm.
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