Meetings with inspiring children in HCMC

The past day and a half have been incredible. Last night, at about 6, my colleagues and I got in a cab and traveled about half an hour away from the Save the Children office in HCMC, to District 26, where about 75 migrant children and their teachers, along with some government officials, were gathered to celebrate the first evening class at the informal school these children attend. After the ceremony itself, which lasted about thirty minutes, the children each received new school bags and I tried (and failed) to speak Vietnamese with them. Then, we interviewed five of them, one each from grades 1 through 5. The kids were inspiring - they each told us that they spend all day working for their parents' businesses (whether it be working in a shop or selling drinks on the sidewalk) and come to class at night. One girl in particular told us that she traveled with her family from Cambodia two years ago, and had spent her evenings the past two years learning Vietnamese at the informal school. There is much work to be done with these children, though: none of the ones we spoke with had ever heard of "child rights" before, and did not know that, for example, they have the right to learn at school. Pictures will be posted soon; they're on the Save the Children camera.

This afternoon we traveled to the Linh Xuan Centre for Child Upbringing and Sponsoring, about 20 km away from our office but in the opposite direction. About 130 children live in this center, 60 or so of whom go to public school (starting at grade 4 - grades 1-3 learn in the center). According to my colleagues, all of the children are orphaned and HIV-positive. First, a group of older children (two of whom are peer educators for Save the Children) worked with us to do a test run of an HIV/AIDS stigma reduction game that Dartmouth helped me create.

Below are some pictures of the kids playing the game - they really helped us hammer out some of the final details.

Then, we interviewed three of the children - one of whom is a peer educator who attended the stigma reduction camp in Ba Vi at the beginning of August (hosted by Save the Children) and has constantly proven himself to be a great leader. At the end, we were shown around the center by some of the caregivers and directors there. Below are some pictures that my coworker, Nhan, and I took at the center after the interviews. The kids were adorable! 

Traveling to Linh Xuan was particularly interesting because it allowed my colleagues and I to compare our experiences here at a center in HCMC with what we saw at Center II in Ba Vi. Linh Xuan center is located in the middle of a bustling district in a major city, and children from the center are able to travel to and from school on their own. Ba Vi, on the other hand, is a rural district located over 60 km away from the city center of Hanoi, and Center II is located far away from many of Ba Vi's communes. Though there are nearly triple the number of orphaned children at Linh Xuan center than there are at Center II, there are also many more staff, which seems to keep everyone's spirits high (at Center II in Ba Vi, there are times when only two caregivers are responsible for fourteen children). The facilities in Linh Xuan are smaller, but just as nice; and because of its proximity to the town, children who live in the center and attend public school in Linh Xuan can bring their friends back to the center to play if they want. I don't mean to make it all sound like peaches and cream here in HCMC - some of the children we interviewed noted that it's hard being at public school and having to come home early (because the center cannot afford to pay for extra classes in the afternoon that the majority of the other children at the school partake in); in addition, oftentimes the children keep their status a secret and do not tell their friends that they live at the center. But - unlike in Ba Vi - the schools in HCMC keep the children's statuses a secret, and allow the children to decide who they want to tell and when. As the new school year begins, the children in Ba Vi still cannot attend public school like their peers in HCMC (http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/Social-Isssues/214932/Schools-bar-students-with-HIV.html), but I am hopeful that sometime in the future they will have the chance to leave Center II to learn.