11th visit to Vietnam Aug.30 - Sept.3, 2017
I would like to tell you that I successfully completed 11th visit to Vietnam in the beginning of September. The past eleven years I visited in early December but I moved it to September this time following the site request. This is just before the new semester starting date for Vietnam elementary schools. All parents and teachers were pleased with our support this year because it included school uniforms, study goods, raincoats, nutritions for 500 children and also included medical check ups by doctors and hair cutting services. It was a national holiday on September 2nd in Vietnam. So I could see the National flag hanging out in front of each houses on my way to the mountain-side area. This is why all supporters were wearing National flag T-shirts, too. There were 25 members in our volunteer group, which consisted of two medical doctors, three nurses, three hair cutters, three children and 14 volunteers. Nhat has been a project leader for last 11 years and helped me to prepare all supporting goods and etc. in Vietnam. He also has been working for world wide NGO called Care International, Plan International and Save the Children for a long time and supported areas all throughout Vietnam. Except me and my wife, who are Japanese, all Vietnamese volunteers gathered from northern and southern Vietnam and volunteered to help us thanks to Nhat’s strong personal network. I departed from Da Nang, a big city in mid-Vietnam, by chartered car on August 31st and dropped by Hue airport to pick up four female volunteers. I got to Nhat’s hometown hotel at 5:30pm and had dinner with many volunteers that night.
We left Nhat’s house before 6:00am the next morning with two cars and one chartered bus. It took one hour and a half to get to the first elementary school. 275 elementary school children were waiting for our arrival. They waited with their teachers and parents in the big school yard. They had already lined up by their grade and were changed into their newly donated school uniforms, which had arrived in advance. After Nhat and I greeted everyone, all the children sang a very popular Vietnamese song which everybody know as ‘The Earth is Ours.’ It was my great pleasure to join the students while playing on my recorder.
Then all the children received the donated goods, which included a raincoat, pencils, pencil case, crayons, ballpoint pens and notebooks and all of which fit into a big nylon bag. All children got both a medical and dental check up and also received vitamin medicine and Nutrition drinks. Another supporting team provided hair cutting services and were able to do their job under the shade of big trees. At the end of the visit, I gave study scholarships to ten students who were selected by their teachers based on their good study results.
On the same day we donated exactly the same goods and support to a second elementary school. This school was located thirty minutes away from the first school, and we visited after our lunch break. The second elementary school had 220 children. They had not changed to the newly donated school uniforms yet, so it took a long time for the volunteers to help the children change into their new clothes.
All volunteer work was done under the mid-summer heat, averaging about 35 degrees each day. This was our first time to do volunteer work in the summer and our team worked very hard but by the end of the day the volunteers were very tired. Just when we were at our tiredest point, two cute girls came up to me and my wife and gave us such a warm “thank you” and big hugs that they revived us at the end of a long day.
After I said thank you and good bye to the volunteer team, I returned to Da Nang straight by charted car and got there around at 9:00pm. Nhat’s elder sister presented me with three days stay at Da Nang hotel as a thank you for my many years of volunteer work and donations for the children of Vietnam.
Here I would like to say thank you very much again to all of our donors. Also I need to give a special thanks to the Airbnb Social Impact Team who helped us a lot by advertising my Shodo experience to their world wide audience and supporting me with no commission charging.
My plan is to continue to visit the same area in Vietnam next year and with your support I hope to reach my target budget of US$ 7, 000.
Best regards,
Ito (Mr)
wrote Sept. 20,2018
PS:
First I started to support HIV/positive born children in the north Vietnam eleven years ago and now am supporting ethic minorities in the mid-Vietnam near the Laos boarder.
You can see lot’s of reporting pictures when you click here . Also you can check our eleven year report by clicking year numbers below;
