Child sponsorship update from Viet Tri

Update for child sponsors from the SOS Children's Village Viet Tri, Vietnam from Summer 2008

Dear Friends,

People feel summer hot and noisy, we have the same felling but interesting with many activities, specially we are writing to share with you the most recent developments and events in SOS children’s village of Viet Tri.

A warm home for many children
Firstly we would like to inform you that, we did the most important thing in the beginning of the year 2008 is to welcome 23 children more to the Village. The children come from two mountainous provinces in the North of Vietnam - They are ethnic minority so they have different language from others here. They showed to be mixed of fear and expectation. Mothers, aunties, co-workers and SOS brothers and sisters in the families helped, loved them a lot. They used many methods even by hand to make them understand what they mean and teach them how to speak Kinh’s Language (the main language spoken in Vietnam). They all get used to the life here quickly and they feel the Village as their home now. Happy noisy caused by laugh from 189 children at every corners of the Village is what you can see at the moment.

Academic performance
We also would like to announce you our children’s academic performance. Most of the children are well aware of the role of learning for their future life. Although there isn’t an exact statistic for the academic year, we catch information from frequent contact with the teachers that our children are investing more and more efforts in learning. Trying their best is always the thing we wish to see though ability may be limited. Many make good progress and gain quite good result, 6 of them received Odon Vallet and Hermann Scholarship, which becomes big encouragement for others to try more. There will be 15 children graduate from high school taking the entrance exam to universities in the coming July. It’s also glad for us to tell you that, some of the children got the highest marks in the trial exam to university. Hope all of them will pass the entrance exam to university to fulfill their desires and ours as well.

Club activities

Elder sisters club of the Village is still running frequently and effectively. Well-trained lecturers invited to the club to talk about psychology and physiology for the awkward age, help them more confident when they step into maturity. Especially, the elder sisters attended the class held by Phu Tho province about anti HIV & AIDS inside the Village for five days. This is a good chance for the girls to know more how to prevent themselves from HIV, help HIV patient and don’t have different looking at them.

Especially, the children got involved in exchanges with volunteers came from many countries in the world. It is a chance for them to make friend to each others. They discuss on many things: friend, schooling, family... They were so excited and pleased with singing, bamboo pole dance. This is also a good chance for the children to speak English and understand more about other nations’ culture.

Growing up in a family

SOS Youth house
The Youth house has been opened since 2003, many boys become young men now. One of them is attending cooking career at vocational school and some of them will graduate from high school then study at universisty, college or vocational schools in the coming September. It is also possible for us to moved others from families to the Youth house. The boys here like playing sport games a lot. Football, table tennis or badminton play a major part in their hobby and it does help them to clear away the tensity from their lessons. In order to enhance health, there is a movement at the Youth house: the children get up so early at 5 a.m for doing excercises, running or playing soccer in the playground inside the Village.

SOS Nursery School

The SOS Nursery School has been carrying out its duties in a very proficiently status in the current time. The surrounding community is always attracted by the fresh atmosphere inside the Village. Besides, the principal and teachers maintain to serve the good regimen and nutritional quality in the kids’ meal in order to ensure the standard and reduce the cases of obesity and malnutrition. The teachers often renovate their methods of teaching, creat new teaching tools that can attract kids in the colourful lessons.

A good student at school and a good girl at home
Thien was one of the first children admitted into the Village. Growing up with our lovely Village, Thien, the shy and scared little girl that day has become an active and smart monitor in her class 11. The impression she gives to people is that continues excellent study results. She won high prizes in the excellent student contests at the municipal and provincial levels. It is a great happiness for us to see that she performs so well in many aspects. Being a girl but she has aptitude in sport games, especially Athletics. She can run so fast that other girls can’t run after her. Apart from the best performance at school, she has always been a nice and dutiful girl in the family. She always shows that she is the eldest sister in her family in making concession to her younger brothers and sisters, doing domestic household chores and gardening together with them to help mother.

All the above-mentioned information is a summary of activities and development of the SOS Children’s Village of Viettri that we would like to share with you. Finally, we are immensely grateful for your generous support on behalf of the Village. We wish you and your family a nice summer with interesting vacation!

Yours sincerely,

Nguyễn Văn Hải
Director
SOS Children’s Village Viet Tri