Chidren of Vietnam Blog

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Infrastructure

Dr. Dannia Southerland named an "Agent Orange Champion"

from:

http://makeagentorangehistory.org/agent-orange-champions/

Agent Orange Champions

There are people around the world who have devoted their time and energy to understanding the legacy of Agent Orange and coming up with solutions to address this problem. These champions come from all different backgrounds and levels of expertise, but all are true humanitarians that are helping make Agent Orange history.

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Dannia Southerland works with a disabled boy in Da Nang who is part of the Hope System of Care.

When Dr. Dannia Southerland first heard from Children of Vietnam, she had no idea what was in store for her. Given her post doctoral research in health and clinical services at Duke University, she had been contacted by the organization to advise on case management for children with disabilities in Vietnam.

Intrigued by what she learned from Children of Vietnam regarding the dire circumstances for Vietnam’s most vulnerable victims of Agent Orange – children with disabilities – Southerland signed on to help design the organization’s Hope System of Care, a “wrap-around” system that integrates social services, rehabilitation, education and other supports to help meet the needs of disabled children in Vietnam. Southerland laughs as she reflects on her first meeting with a board member from Children of Vietnam: “I went for coffee in Chapel Hill,” Southerland says, “and wound up in Vietnam 30 days later.”

Shortly after arriving in Vietnam, Southerland realized the challenges of implementing a comprehensive and decidedly western model in a country where social services infrastructure is not yet fully developed.

“Without a social services infrastructure, there is no way to develop sustainable services,” Southerland says, “You can pour a lot of money into orthopedic surgeries and maybe impact the incidence of club foot…but to have real lasting impact, to provide services to help these children improve their life chances, that’s what we’ve been focused on.”

Southerland consulted local health professionals and case workers in Da Nang – the pilot city for program – who evaluated Hope System of Care and offered suggestions on which services would work and which would not be practical. She then got to work developing partnerships with the city of Da Nang and the Vietnamese government.

Today, the Hope System of Care serves children in two districts in Da Nang, and every child who has ever enrolled in the program continues to receive support. Southerland remains a committed advocate for sustainable social services throughout Vietnam and hopes to expand the program in the near future.

“The legacy of Agent Orange is the legacy of a bad time,” Southerland says, “but an opportunity for people to come together and build bridges across cultures and continents… It’s an exciting ideal, making Agent Orange history.”

Click here to learn about other AO Champions and the Make Agent Organge History Campaign!

Sanitation issues in Vietnam

According to the Wold Health Organization, each year more than 20,000 people die in Vietnam each year because of a lack of clean water, poor sanitation and hygiene.

Though Vietnam's economy and government policies are continuing to impove, sanitation facilties and habits in rural villages are still a real concern.

No access to clean sanitation and hygiene causes about half of all communicable diseases in the country.

Twenty million children, or 59 percent of all children in Vietnam, do not have access to proper sanitation. About 73 percent of schools have latrines, but fewer than half meet national standards.

As a result, many rural villagers still practice open defication. Open defication leads to pollution, diseases and death-- especially when water sources that are used for drinking, cooking and cleaning become polluted.

The Vietnamese government as well as a variety of NGOs are doing their part to increase the health of the nation's children through the construction of acceptable bathroom faciltiies.

You can help Children of Vietnam in this pursit by donating to the construction of homes and schools with proper sanitation facilties!

Or, just learn more about the issue by checking out: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=90900

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COV Video

Tháng chín 20, 2010 Posted by COV | Vietnam, myblog, Infrastructure, housing, Hope System of Care, Gift, family, Donate, disability, dioxin, children, agent orange | Comment (0)

Country Director speaks on behalf of Disabled Citizens

Huong_07 Recently, COV's Country Director Ms. Huong was asked to speak in front of the entire Danang's People's Committee to discuss what COV is doing on behalf of people with disabilities. Below is the speech she presented. We are so thankful for the hardwork of the entire COV staff and we appreciate opportunties like this to spread awareness about the awesome work COV is doing!

Children of Vietnam (COV) is an American non-profit organization based in Winston – Salem, North Carolina and in Danang City, Vietnam. In the past years with specific activities, Children of Vietnam was really contributing to the effective realization of the dreams of beneficiaries who are children with disabilities, poor children, has especially difficult circumstances through programs such as: Sponsoring Education, Building Homes, Health Care, comprehensive support program oriented business for poor single women.

Children of Vietnam Organization has contributed to improve the living circumstances of a part of disadvantaged children, less fortunate, bring the warm pleasure, the sharing and hope both materially and spiritually.

Currently in Danang area, there are more than 5,000 victims of Agent Orange, including nearly 1,400 children, most of them are deformed malformation, paralysis, mental retardation, spirit life is not good anymore. Especially many families have from 2 to 3 victims, the living circumstance is very difficult. Therefore they always expect the attention and assistance from community.

COV thinks that th e development of infrastructure an d soci al services in Vietnam providing a safety net for these families is critical employment. Our organization are moving our focus from direct support towards a sustainable development program which is called “ Hope System of Care” Project. This project has been being done in 2 districts of Hai Chau and Ngu Hanh Son for 200 beneficiaries and their families with a total budget of $474,900 within 2 years.

We contract with consultants specializing in social services from Duke University in North Carolina, USA for technical advice as well as training related to case management and assessment methodology. The training services will be supplemented with external contracts as necessary and priority selection of local experts and local whenever possible (such as Open University in Ho Chi Minh City, Medicine University in Hue).

The critic al issue of Hope System of Care for Children with Disabilities is to establish and promote the sustainabi lity of integrated service strategies to improve the quality of care and life for children with disabilities and solve complex problems as well as the necessary needs from many areas and from service providers. The goal of this integrated service strategy is to develop and implement the foundation in order to manage the full package of care and services for beneficiaries.

Care plan builds on strengths, specific needs of children with disabilities and their families by group of experts, consultants from VAVA, Health Care, Education, DOLISA, Women Union. It is called Care Management Team (CMT), this group consider the need package of children with disabilities and their families who are this project’s beneficiaries.

After having consideration for the need package, each member of the Management Team will continue to give their professional advice and determine how to select appropriate services. Because needs of each beneficiary are not same, the consultants making decision for intervention and support could be different.

Intervention plan may include surgery and rehabilitation, nutrition, providing wheelchairs and medical equipment, supporting special scholarship and community scholarship, vocational training, livelihood – microfinance, housing and emergency support.

These help beneficiaries develop their own inherent potential, give them the opportunity to overcome difficulties itself to integrate into community.Thus in the past year, our “Hope System of Care for Children with Disabilities” has been voted one of the best ten models of care for disabled people in Vietnam and will be expanded in the future.

COV actively collaborate with governmental and non-governmental organizations, agencies whose has the common purpose. Through this collaboration, we can maximize together, raise up our findings more and more and will further increase the impact of organization. We also have programs associated with International Non-governmental Organizations such as: Ford

Foundation, Facing the World, W.C.Swanson Family, Family Foundation.

COV has been making humanitarian activities in Danang and other provinces in Central Region nearly 13 years and has won numerous awards for humanitarian works from, Vietnam Red Cross Association, People’s Committee of provinces in Central Region. Furthermore, Vietnam Friendship Organizations Union awarded campaign medal for Peace Friendship between Peoples in 2009.

We sincerely thank the close coordination between our Organization with Agent Orange Victims Association of city. Thanks community responsibility from Hai Chau district and Ngu Hanh Son district in the activity named “ Sharing Hands because of Agent Orange Pain” at local. This attention is a great motivation for us in the effort to strive for the development of the community and the young generation.

Best wishes to all disabled children should receive help from the community to gradually build a better future. Last but not least, wish yours health and wish the meeting successful. We sincerely appreciate.

Tháng chín 11, 2010 Posted by COV | Vietnam, speech, Infrastructure, Hope System of Care, disability, dioxin, agent orange | Comment (0)

Contact Us

817 West End Boulevard
Winston Salem, NC 27101
Phone: 336.727.1110
Fax: 336.725.7111
info@childrenofvietnam.org