VIETNAM
Partner Organization: Youth Coordination Center, Vietnam (YCCV)
Scholarship Program for Students & School Library

After the revolution and ultimate unification of the north and south, the Vietnamese government adopted a socialist program with a priority for fulfilling the basic needs of the people, which included education, health care, employment and shelter. Through the strong determination of the people, Vietnam made some progress but due to the effect of cold war design and political isolation, Vietnam found it increasingly difficult to achieve its stated socialist goals.

In the early 90s an open door policy was adopted and slowly structural adjustment was carried out and subsidies were withdrawn from basic services. In regards to the education sector, many people have lost their jobs and school fees have become more expensive. Unfortunately, the trend seems to be continuing with high numbers of students leaving school with Vietnam now one of the highest ranking countries in terms of school drop-out rates.

Against this backdrop YCCV, with the support of LOMEF/ARF has initiated a program to support education programs in two provinces.

Vinh Tuy Village School
From a survey conducted by YCCV it was found that the elementary school of Vinh Tuy, Tanh Tri district located approximately 10 km from Hanoi required LOMEF/ARF support. Vin Tuy is a village of 8,000 with one third of the population migrants from other rural areas of the country. The majority of families in the village are landless and earn their income from growing vegetables and flowers in their small kitchen gardens.

Through discussion between YCCV members and village teachers there was a decision to help poor children who are facing financial difficulties and have a tendency to drop out of school. The overall aim of the project; to provide needy students selected by the school teachers with modest scholarships at the beginning of the school year. The scholarships will help them to purchase necessary school items such as school uniforms, shoes/sandals, school bags, books, pens and other small equipment. A small part of the LOMEF/ARF grant was further allocated to the establishment of a children’s library. The library is still in the process of collecting relevant books and creating a reading space for the children.

Quan Hanh Secondary School & Special School for Poor Students
Both these schools are in the province of Nghe An, located approximately 300 km from Hanoi. Nghe An is the poorest province in Vietnam due to its bad climate, poor soil, the prevalence of natural disasters such as flooding and drought and under funded health services and education programs. Due to this, many talented young people leave the area for more prosperous districts, thus perpetuating the cycle of poverty. To encourage stability in the area, scholarships provided by LOMEF/ARF go towards teacher’s salaries and books/teaching materials to two such under funded educational institutions. Quan Hanh Secondary School provides schooling from grade 6 to 9 with the Special School offering instruction from grade 10 to 12.