What We DoCompleted Projects

• Expand capacity to raise chickens. Mai Am Thien Tam orphanage, Nha Trang.
• Educational and nutritional project for 66 children, Bưu Trì Pagoda Orphanage, Cần Thơ.
• Footwear for 30 children at Buu Tri Pagoda Orphanage, Can Tho.
• Nutrition and free-range chicken raising for 40 children, Thiên Ân Orphanage, Cần Thơ.
• Project for Trang Nứa Orphanage, Xã Đoài, Nghệ An Province. Hot water unit in shower 4.85M. Infant formula 2.2M and nappies 1.5M for 3 new infants. Winter clothing for 26 children 3.4M. a large size washing machine and bicycles so kids could cycle to school.
• 20 metal wash basins for Thanh Son Pagoda.
• 100 kg rice for children at Loc Tho Pagoda.
• 4 Black mountain pigs for Dai An Orphanage, (Cam Lam).
• Soft toy for each girl at Huong Duong orphanage (Nha Trang).
• Ice-cream night, Huong Duong orphanage (Nha Trang).
• Trang Nua Orphanage Clothes storage furniture for children. Chest of drawers @ 1.15 x 4of = 4.6M. Hanging cupboard @ 1.5 x 2of = 3M.
• 10 Blankets, 20 litres cooking oil, 4 boxes milk. Mother Teresa of Calcutta Orphanage, Xa Doai.
• TV for education and enjoyment at Trang Nua orphanage. (Xa Doai, Near Vinh City). TV, antenna, DVD player and wall brackets, delivery and installation.
• For children at Long An Pagoda orphanage (Can Tho): 5L cooking oil, 5L soy sauce, 10 kg sugar, 25kg rice, 120 pkts noodles, 100 cartons UHT milk, 4 toothbrushes, 20 bars soap, 4 toothpaste tubes, 9kg washing powder.
• Food donation storage: Vietnam manufactured freezer for Thien An orphanage (Can Tho) to enable stock piling fish donations.
• Infant care supplies for Vinh Phuoc Pagoda orphanage at Bac Lieu.
• Children’s farm: cow, vegetable garden fertiliser and edging, chickens at Dai An Orphanage, (Cam Lam).
• Shoes and food for Street Children’s group, Can Tho. 40 pairs sandals for children and teenagers; delivery of 30 eggs per week for 6 months.
• Medicine supplies for shelters and orphanages in Nha Trang region: La Salle Disabled workshop; Huong Duong orphanage; Dai An orphanage; Nhan Ai orphanage;Thanh Son Pagoda; Loc Tho Pagoda; An Dao Buddhist orphanage; Minh Hoa Deaf School. Managed by Lam, local interpreter.
• Food supplement and hygiene supplies for Blind People’s workshop, Nha Trang.
• Trang Nua, Vinh – three bicycles and 10 winter blankets.
• We provided funding of an orphanage playground for the Holy Cross disabled children’s orphanage at Huong Phuong. In 2011 we raised $6,365 at St Vincent’s Church Aranda and by Sonja and Damian Morgan with their friends in Chatswood. This was matched dollar-for-dollar by a private donor from the St Aloysius College community. I inspected play equipment makers in Saigon then met with therapists in Canberra who work with the disabled. They advised cushioned ground to minimise brain injury from play accidents, and to avoid “ball pools” which were a hygiene problem.

• Each year we provided the 19.5 disabled children’s orphanage in Xa Doai run by the Sisters of Charity with a food and hygiene supply of 400 small nappies, 250 medium nappies, 100 large nappies, rice 100 kg, hand soap pumps x 3, shampoo 3 litres, laundry powder 6kg, chicken soup sachets x 30, cooking oil 10 litres, seasoning powder 5 kg, sugar 10kg, noodles 100 pkts, milk mini-cartons x 96, large milk cartons x 50. Each time we visit a disabled children’s shelter with hard floors we provide padded floors of interlocking foam mats to reduce fall injuries in select areas. We assisted 20 disabled children in the Disabled Children’s Day Care Room, Holy Cross Convent, Phát Diệm. We provided acupuncture and therapeutic massage equipment for An Binh shelter, Saigon and a set of winter clothing for each child at Holy Cross disabled children’s orphanage, Vinh.
• The Dominican convent Shelter for Homeless Women, Suoi Tien, Dong Nai, houses a hundred homeless women, some without family support, others collected from the street. Most are elderly. Over some years, we delivered a range of projects: sun-shading the 40m verandah of the disabled women’s block, providing water filter machines, medicines, massage chairs, “fireless” cupping kits (bo giac hoi) and blood sugar testing kits.

• School materials, padded flooring and winter clothing for 20 disabled children, Holy Cross Convent, Phát Diệm.
• Support Vi Nhân School for Disabled Children, Buôn Mê Thuột, Dak Lak Province: Scanner/photocopier and school materials for poor students. Padded flooring for kindergarten. Educational materials to distribute throughout the School.
• Supplies for 10 disabled girls and women, An Bình Orphanage, Sài Gòn.
• Course scholarships An Binh Orphanage, Saigon. Sewing training for women: Second hand Juki overlocker sewing machine with new table, An Binh Orphanage, Saigon. Music training: Yamaha electronic keyboard, stand and chair, An Binh Orphanage.
• Electric vehicle for Huyền, An Binh shelter, Saigon
• One year school fee scholarship for two girls, Loan and Phượng, living at Shelter for Homeless Women, Suối Tiên Đồng Nai.
• Ninh Hòa School for the Disabled. Clothing sets for all the children 40 sets of tops and bottoms, underwear for all children 54, two pairs sandals for indigenous sisters.
• Second-hand football game table for autistic and downs syndrome children and teenagers, Mái Ấm Hy Vọng Cam Lâm.
• Bicycles, school materials & fees for disadvantaged kids of 5 families near Ha Tinh city.
• School fee scholarships Võ Thị Thiên Trang Yr 6, aged 12, fees 2.42M and Võ Thị Linh Đan Yr 2 aged 7, fees 2.42M, children of illiterate parents, Thạch Hà village, Hà Tinh. Also Trần Thị Hồng Ân Yr 8, aged 14, fees 3.36M, Thạch Bằng village, orphaned and being raised by grandmother.
• School fee scholarship for two girls living at Shelter for Homeless Women, Suoi Tien (Dong Nai).
• Disabled women’s tertiary course fee scholarships, An Bình disabled women’s shelter, Saigon.
• School fee scholarships Thien Trang Vo (Yr 5, aged 11, fees 2.42M) and Linh Dan Vo (Yr 1 aged 6, fees 2.42M)), children of illiterate parents, Thach Ha village, Ha Tinh. Also Hong An Tran (Yr 7, aged 13, fees 3.36M), Thach Bang village, orphaned and being raised by grandmother. Sept 2016 to June 2017 academic year.
• Library of children’s books purchased from the city bookshop for Huong Duong orphanage, Can Tho.
• Returning to school supplies for children of Buu Tri Pagoda orphanage, Can Tho.
• Employment of Nhung, for a year’s weekly tutoring at An Binh Orphanage, Saigon. Payment also includes study materials.
• Help for Canh Van Hoang a boy in Quang Binh Province to receive a school education. Run by Tien Cao (seminarian in NZ).
• School education support for 3 poor families in Hue City.
• School educational materials and chickens for needy families, Ben Tre village, Mekong Delta. Run by Hap, local priest.
• Thien An orphanage, Can Tho. This new shelter was created by one local woman. We paid school fees for 10 children for 1 year, 200kg rice, 50 boxes of noodles, library books. Managed by Hien, local interpreter. School fees for 10 children for one year at 1MD/child/year; rice 100kg @ 1.5M noodles 50 boxes of 20 packets total 5M; library of books about sex education and personal hygiene etc @ 1M. Total 17.5M = $1,000. Plus we purchased books to the value of 1.56M for teenagers. Paid to Hien (interpreter) to manage. Interpreter Linh donated cost of another 100kg rice.
• Library books and furniture for Huong Duong orphanage, Nha Trang.
• Funds paid for school materials presented as encouragement awards in a remote area school in Quang Nam province.
• School materials to encourage a mother from poor household in Hue to send children to school. The mother works as a garbage recycler and suffers mental illness.
• An Binh shelter for disabled women and girls, Saigon. Tertiary and school course fee scholarship. Two new computers and one computer upgrade with a printer and monitor. New books for a study library.
• Huong Duong (sunflower) Orphanage, near Can Tho. Books, comic books, posters, a globe, and bookshelves.
• School materials for Buu Tri Temple Orphanage in Can Tho City.
• Vytas, Adrian Mong and Peter Kabaila purchased motorbikes at a market for a road trip. When they had completed the thousand kilometre trip through the mountains of Vietnam the bikes were given to young nuns studying at Hue University.
• Australian sponsors assisted over 25 young women sent for tertiary study from the Holy Cross convent at Huong Phuong village, Quang Binh. This program helped women to train in certificate courses in nursing and disability care at Danang and blood-testing course in Saigon. We also provided course equipment including second hand laptops, desktop computers, stethoscopes and blood pressure testing kits. Students were sponsored at $250 per semester. This program ran at a cost of about $5,000 per semester. After three years we ended the program due to growing costs and difficulty of tracking funds.
• At Holy Cross disabled children’s orphanage in Huong Phuong, Quang Binh, in 2011 we provided a fleet of bicycles for children to be able to get to school.
• At Holy Cross disabled children’s orphanage in Huong Phuong, Quang Binh, in 2011 we provided new computers and printers. These were shipped from Saigon and delivered by Vietnam Post by pull cart.

We support single mothers by care packages to single mothers and their babies delivered to shelters. Each care package contains a pillow, beanie, blanket, 3 tops/pants, 2 bibs, 10 cloth nappies, 2 pairs socks, 10 face cloths, and for mother a towel with basic hygiene and skin care items. We have supported single mothers’ shelters at Mai Ấm Tình Mẹ, Bình Dương; St Paul De Chartres convent, Phát Diệm, Mái Ấm Thiên Ân near Ha Tinh city, St Martin Single Mothers Home, Dong Nai; and Nga, unmarried mother from village in Ha Tinh, sheltered at Huong Phuong orphanage, Sisters of Charity shelter in Lam Dong Province. Other forms of assistance included equipment for a childbirth/surgery recovery room, a library, hair dryers, baby formula, maternity clothing and food provisions. We believe that single mothers have the right to feel beautiful instead of being outcasts. So our care packages include budget skin care and cosmetic supplies.

Hiếu, acid attack victim.

• Visit and buy 6 month old cow to raise household income, Nghe An.
• Second-hand sewing machine and overlocker.
• Visit and provide 300 nappies and baby clothing.
• Chicken raising project. 50 one month old chickens.
• Working funds provided to Nhung, volunteer English tutor, to periodically visit Hieu, a 23 year old affected by an acid attack on her mother when Hieu was just 3 months old, to assist Hieu when needed. Hieu will continue to be encouraged and supported by our fund to complete any offered surgery or job training.
• Assistance to cover a few medical costs.

Thuy, burns accident.

We provided Thuy, a woman severely burnt in an accident, with materials for a pig house with piglets to raise. We then supported her in a chicken raising project. Through help from us and her village neighbours, Thuy worked hard and rebuilt a very good life for her family.

Thanh Tam told the story when he visited Thuy in his home village in Quang Binh. “Thuy’s father died when she was young and her Mum had to work hard to support the children. Because their family was so poor, Thuy had to stop school very early. When Thuy turned 18 she married Hoai, a man from her village. When they had their first baby, it was found to have a serious heart defect that needed a medical operation. The operation would cost about 70 million VND ($3,500A). This was a huge amount of money for the poor family. If they sold all they had, including their small house, it may not have covered the cost of the operation.

The hospital agreed to cover half the cost of the operation. To pay the remainder, Thuy and her husband had to sell everything in the house. They also had to borrow on interest from the bank and from many other people. After the operation, the boy escaped death, but still relies on daily medication. Thuy’s husband drives a truck to North Vietnam. He is away from home much of the time, to support the family and repay debts.

In Central Vietnam after giving birth, women in winter use a charcoal fire in a pot to warm the baby and mother and prepare them for the hard physical work in the rice fields and jungle.

Two days after Thuy gave birth to a second son, she loaded charcoal into the pot and sat down beside it, screened by a bamboo mat. Thuy’s mother went to the kitchen to cook and look after two grandchildren. After a while, she asked the older boy to check on his mother. The toddler called out but she did not answer him. Curious, he came closer and saw through the bamboo mat that his mother was burning in the flames from the charcoal pot. Terrified, he called his grandmother.

The grandmother was so frightened the sight of her daughter on fire that she could hardly believe her eyes. In shock, she called the neighbours, who immediately drove Thuy to the large hospital in Hanoi, 450kms away.

Thuy had suffered a heart attack while heating herself behind the bamboo screen. Unconscious, she fell into the pot of burning charcoal. Her stomach, breast, right arm and right leg were burnt black and the bone could be seen in some spots.

When Thuy’s husband Hoai heard the horrible news, he went immediately to the hospital. Luckily he was driving near Hanoi at that time. At the hospital, Thuy had three operations with skin and muscle grafts taken from her left leg to repair the burns. She was sent home after two weeks in hospital. There were no spare hospital beds and the cost of staying there was too high.

Since Thuy returned home, her mother has looked after her and the two children. It is hard work for the grandmother because Thuy has difficulty moving and needs someone to feed, wash and clothe her.

We arrived at Thuy’s house one evening in winter. It was fairly dark and the power had been cut. The house was in poor condition, possibly the poorest home in the village. We called out, “Is there anyone in the house?” and heard Thuy’s faint voice coming from the bed. Her mother then came from the kitchen. Thuy’s older son was playing with a cousin in the corner of the house and the baby was being sung to sleep in a hammock by his eight year female cousin. The uneven earth floor of the house had a lot of holes. It was furnished with an old table, some second hand chairs and a traditional family altar.

Thuy could not sit up. Although it was a cold winter, she was not able to wear many clothes. Some of her wounds were painful, oozing liquid and infected. Her grandmother asked us to come and have a look at some of the wounds on her daughter’s body. These brought tears to my eyes. Because the doctor did major surgery on the left leg, we saw a big hole with some bone protruding. The right leg could not move. The right arm was badly burnt. Three fingers had been so severely burned that they had to be removed.

Thuy has difficulty sleeping at nights. She told me that she always felt severe pain, especially at night time. She was so tired that she had could not move to right or left. But the pain, she said, is nothing compared to when she hears her baby cry from hunger and cold. She said at night the baby could not sleep as it was cold and because he was hungry. Thuy normally cried when she heard the boy cry at night. She was tearful while she was telling us about it.

Thuy then told us that her desire was to recover quickly and look after her baby and feed him. That was all she wanted. She just wanted to hold her child on her arms when he cries but could not. It was difficult for us to hold back our tears at that point.

Thuy showed herself to be a very courageous young woman. She said that God was good to keep her alive. She said, “I still have two fingers on the right hand. Hopefully, in the future I can use these two fingers to hold a spoon when I have a meal.” Neighbours feel sorry for Thuy and for the baby. They have brought meals and canned milk for the baby but they are also poor. They do not have much money and life is still hard for them. We gave Thuy some gifts and said goodbye. On the way home, I could not shake off the image of this suffering and brave woman.”

Hoa, widow.

We provided funding for Hoa, a widow living in Tuyen Hoa, Quang Binh. Her family family moved from Ke Dong, in Thach Ha, Ha Tinh. Her husband was killed in an accident, leaving Hoa to cultivate rice on a very small plot of only 1,000 square meters. She could not raise enough money to pay government school fees for the boys. So she left the boys with their grandmother and went to Saigon to work as a servant for a wealthier family. She was still not able to raise enough money to pay for the children’s schooling and returned home. We funded a year’s school fees for her three boys and half the cost of a calf.

Huong, Thuy Tien, heart surgery.

When Huong, aged 35 and her husband realised they could not have children of their own, they adopted Thuy Tien at birth from an unmarried mother. When I met Huong at the convent she had just been to the hospital with her adopted baby. She had travelled all the way from Nghe An province, an area with many poor villages. At the Hanoi Heart Hospital she discovered that her baby would die from a heart condition unless the hospital operated. The Hospital’s quote was $2,800. Huong arrived at the convent to seek help at the same time that I was visiting. With tears in her eyes, she explained that she had used up her family’s money to travel to Hanoi and get the hospital examination for her baby. We funded the hospital quoted cost of heart surgery.

• Support pig raising for 11 households, E-đê indigenous village, Dak Lak Province
• Visit households with 25 food parcels, E-đê indigenous village, Dak Lak Province.
• Visit poorest families and elderly with food. Buôn K dũn village of E-đê indigenous people. 10 poorest families and 6 elder households identified by Sisters of St Paul de Chartres.
• Chicken and goose raising project for Buôn K dũn village Dak Lak Province. 70 geese, 150 chickens and 8 bags feed for 15 poorest families to raise.
• Visit 8 households with food parcels, chickens and pigs, M’Nong indigenous village, Dak Nong Province.
• Medicines distributed by nuns at Kontum Gialai Province to remote village of forcibly resettled indigenous people.
• Visit 15 households with food parcels, Raklay indigenous village, Khan Hoa Province.
• Support chicken raising for 10 households, Raklay indigenous village, Khan Hoa Province.
• Medicine supply for Raklay indigenous village, Khan Hoa Province.
• Visit 23 households with food parcels, Van Kieu indigenous village, Quảng Trị.
• Support tree planting by 23 households, Van Kieu indigenous village, Quảng Trị Province.
• School materials for Thái indigenous children, Nghe An.
• Tree planting project. Bản Khe Ngài indigenous village, Đăkrông, Quảng Trị. 1,000 trees x 15 families.
• Flood relief for 20 households in Ede indigenous village, Central Highlands, south of Buon Me Thuot.
• Provisions for the poor in a Paco indigenous village, A Lưới.
• Children’s clothing, chickens and piglets to raise; blankets and rice to the poorest families in Hung Son indigenous village (about 150 km inland from Cau Giat).

• Support chicken raising for 15 households near Phát Diệm.
• Visit 16 households with food parcels, villages near Ha Tinh City
• Support chicken raising by 10 poor households near Ha Tinh city.
• Visit and assist 8 poor households in two villages near Ha Tinh city.
• 7 acupuncture kits máy châm cứu and 2 medical “fireless” cupping kits bộ giác hơi. Village clinic at Cây Gáo Đồng Nai.
• Free range chicken farming project. Factory workers’ soup kitchen at Khu Công Nghiệp Song Mây. 50 egg-laying chickens and a supply of feed.
• Pig raising for 5 poor families in 4 mountain villages around Phong Nha.
• Phát Diệm. Xã Kim Định village. Provisions for visiting 5 households affected by HIV.
• Medicines for the poor in 4 villages around Phong Nha.
• Phát Diệm. Group household of 10 homeless women, several of them blind. Food provisions.
• Xa Doai Medical Clinic. Clinic doctor’s computer. Computer with internet, accessories and software for the clinic doctor’s further medical education.
• Emergency surgery for ectopic pregnancy at Xa Thach Long village, Ha Tinh.
• Poultry farming project for a family in Ha Tinh.
• Cover funding gap for surgery to enable a fisherman to walk, raise his children and return to work. Dong Ha village, Ha Tinh.
• Help for a family in Quang Binh who were severely burnt in a petrol electricity generator explosion.
• Furniture, rice and cooking oil for medical clinic canteen at Nga Nam, Mekong Delta.
• Furniture and equipment for Chuyen My village kindergarten and natural healing medical clinic.
• Our $5,000 gap funding for a $15,000 community water filtration plant project resulted in low-cost water for Quỳnh Ngọc fishing village in Nghe An.
• Visit 8 lepers with food parcels. Khan Hoa Province.
• Support chicken raising for lepers, Khan Hoa Province.
• Encourage chicken raising for 20 households, Quynh Lap leper village, Nghe An. Chicken raising project at Quỳnh Lập Leper Colony. For 55 leper households with capability of raising chickens, 20 chickens for each household. Quynh Lap Leper Colony. Heaters for patients in hospice.
• The Holy Cross convent at Huong Phuong village, Quang Binh runs an orphanage for 45 disabled children. It is a large operation that includes farming, gathering donations, staffing, building, cooking and care. Our support began in 2011 with a rice cutting machine to ease labour at harvest time (half-funded by our friends Clive and Eric in Berrima). Later that year Peter Kabaila returned to Vietnam to fund a washing machine, kitchenware, stainless steel bed frames and elec supply voltage stabiliser. Thanks to Clive and Eric, Huong Phuong village got its second rice harvesting machine.

• Medicine packages for 12 orphanages and schools in Nha Trang region. Each package contains medicines for worm treatment, allergies, diarrhoea, adult cough syrup, paracetamol adult dose, paracetamol child dose, anti-inflammatory, multivitamins, child cough, temperature reduction bandages, mosquito repellent. The orphanages and schools were La Salle disabled workshop and accommodation, Lộc Thọ Pagoda orphanage, Hướng Dương orphanage, Chùa Phật Bửu, Ninh Hòa, Thanh Sơn Pagoda orphanage, Cam Lâm, Nhân Ái, Cam Ranh, Đại An Orphanage, Cam Ranh, An Đào orphanage, Ninh Hòa, Ninh Hòa School for Disabled.
• Local Ede indigenous people scavenge recyclable materials at the Buon Me Thuot City tip. This work is shameful, but pays better than farm labouring. The recyclers often handle sharps as well as contaminated materials. That is why we have travelled to the tip each year. Our guide, a local nun, greets the people and hands out sweet cakes while we unload and distribute protective clothing from our motorbikes: plastic boots, face masks, long plastic gloves and work gloves hands. In 2018 we distributed 50 sets of protective clothing.

• Support Buddhist volunteer group canteen at Sài Gòn Cancer Hospital.
• Food packets to hand out to 100 cancer patients, Cancer Hospital Soup Kitchen, Sài Gòn.
• Support youth volunteer group canteen at Thach Ha hospital.
• Equipment for doctor at Xã Đoài medical clinic: stethoscope compressor nebuliser, blood pressure gauge, ear/nose examination torch, infrared heat lamp.
• Quỳnh Lập Leper Colony. Provide winter blankets for sisters living with people in the colony, visiting and counselling them.
• Fund Cao Dai volunteers to visit poorest households in Tay Ninh local villages with food and hygiene provisions.
• Youth group mission to the poor, Hue City area: Lasan youth group mission is to visit each of 20 families with food parcel.
• Nuns’ mission to the poor: Sisters of Charity visits to vulnerable households with mozzie nets, winter blankets and food. Hưng Trach mountain village, near Phong Nha.
• Tuyen Hoa (Near Ba Don, Quang Binh). Social work by students in Vietnam. Group visit to poorest households in the village of Tuyen Hoa, at the traditional gift giving time of Tet festival. Food parcels of banh chung.
• Village education projects at Hau Giang Province, Mekong Delta. Run by Tern Group, a small charity organised by Duong, a university student in Saigon. Employ a librarian. Hold a literacy competition. Provide school materials, clothes or fees for several children.
• Hundreds of overseas volunteer visits and cultural exchange at orphanages, guided by our interpreters.