Quang Ninh and Hai Phong

A lot has changed in the month since my last post. I got to go on even more work trips, meet youth just as inspiring as the ones in Ho Chi Minh City, and found out that my trip is being cut short by six months. Gotta take the good with the bad I guess! 


After returning from HCMC, I spent a few days in Hanoi before traveling up to Quang Ninh province for an event with street youth in Halong City, located close to Halong Bay (a popular tourist attraction). We left at 4 a.m. Friday morning, and made the three-hour trip in two thanks to my skillful driver. Unfortunately, I couldn't conduct any interviews during the day because of problems with the Quang Ninh police (oh, Vietnam). The trip was well worth it, though, and I got to meet and interview several street youth before, during, and after the two-hour event. Below is an excerpt from the Success Story I wrote, about Project NAM's self-help groups in Quang Ninh.


Project NAM, the initiative run by Save the Children Vietnam that I was tasked with evaluating, has created a network of self-help groups to provide support for these youth throughout Quang Ninh. Project staff train Peer Educators (PEs) on topics ranging from HIV/AIDS prevention and where youth can go for counseling and testing services to how to engage in sex and drug use safely. These PEs – many of whom live on the street themselves – then organize self-help groups in locations that are convenient for the clients, such as parks and rental homes. There are four self-help groups in Quang Ninh, and each group has 25-30 members and meets for 2 hours per week. During meetings, clients not only learn how to avoid contracting HIV/AIDS through games and discussions, but are also provided with an emotionally supportive environment to share their stories and ask for help.



One peer educator for Project NAM told me that the self-help groups were fundamental in supporting at-risk street youth in Quang Ninh. She told a touching story about one member of her self-help group that got very sick and needed to return to his hometown. The student and the other group members gathered two million dong to pay for his transportation, and some of them traveled with him to Mong Cai, 200 kilometers away from Quang Ninh, to ensure that he found his family safely. “Fortunately, after some days, we found his family,” she said to me. “He was recognized as a family member so he can register for temporary living, and it will be easier for him to rent a house. He’s not a street youth anymore.” This boy is one of the many beneficiaries of the supportive and proactive self-help groups that Project NAM organized in Quang Ninh.

And are some pictures from the event I attended in Quang Ninh: 

 ^Several Peer Educators who have been fundamental in running the self-help groups for Project NAM.

 ^A role-play that several peer educators planned.

 

The next week, I travelled to Hai Phong province, two hours north of Hanoi, where I conducted an evaluation of a Drop-In center that Project NAM created for street youth who use drugs. We met with staff who helped run the center, Peer Educators, and clients. Without a doubt, project NAM has made one of the biggest impacts in Hai Phong City, and the drop-in center really became a place where drug users and other street children could go whenever they needed a meal, a shower, or just a place to read a book. Here's an excerpt from the Success Story I wrote about the drop-in center: 

By providing a safe haven for these youth – a place where they could go to eat a hot meal, have a shower, meet friends, and get counseling, judgment-free – the DIC became an important fixture in the lives of many street youth, particularly IDUs. Project NAM Peer Educators (PEs) would scour the streets of the city, speaking with IDUs about the DIC. Once at the center, open from Monday to Friday every week, youth were taught about healthy living practices such as HIV prevention and where to go for methadone treatment. The DIC received approximately 100 visits from street youth every month during the eight months it was open.

If you ask 23-year-old N about the DIC, his eyes light up and he begins to talk excitedly about the friends he made and the help he received there. N, a drug user who has been living on the street for three years, was feeling very sick when he first started coming to the DIC. Staff counseled him, then took him to a voluntary counseling and testing center (VCT) to get tested for HIV. When the results came back positive, staff at the DIC regularly took him to the VCT to have his CD4 counts measured, told him how to use drugs safely, and counseled him on how to live with the disease in a healthy manner.

“Before coming to the DIC, I just lived day after day without any thought, any knowledge about myself, just to survive,” N, a client at the DIC, said. “But after coming to the DIC, I had a place to drop in whenever I felt hungry or whenever there was bad weather, or to have a shower, to wash my clothes. It was the only place for me to call for any help.”

And here are some pictures of my amazing three-day journey there: 

 ^I had the pleasure of attending one afternoon club session with several clients, SCiV staff, and Project Officers.

 ^Me with a client, a Peer Educator, and a Project Officer.


After all of my adventures during August and September, the month of October has started off pretty calmly. Now that I'm leaving on December 8, though, I'm going to try to travel around and see lots of Southeast Asia before I head off. Trips to Cambodia and Laos are probably going to happen, and if they do I'll have lots more pictures to post!