Home schooling

Saturday, 28th of August

Easy going, had to get some water first … every day we drink about 4.5 litre of water. We buy the bottle at the chemist for VND 6000 per 1.5 litre, in total VND 18.000 ~ AUS 0.85. Wherever we go we carry at least two 500mil bottles.

Went into town to buy some books. Found 2 big bookshops, but all they carry is American book, nothing Australian, not one book!!! Anyway, we found an interesting one, Uli is reading it right now. It’s written by an English writer, she married a Vietnamese guy and lives on the outskirts of Sai Gon. We do have her web site … see if we can contact her.

Then we were checking out laptops. Difficult … so many shops and all different brands. We assume we just need a standard laptop, nothing fancy.

In the afternoon we met with Hoan and Lin. Together they run a home school for underprivileged kids in district 8. Hoan showed us the way on her bike, taxi just followed her. We met Hoan’s friend and seven children, the max number of children they teach is 11. The girls are doing a wonderful job teaching the kid to read and write. Parents simply can not afford to pay for school fees, books, uniforms notepads and whatever is required.
Hoan pays for all the material and donate their time, 3 times a week for 2 – 3 hours. The HOAN LIN School is a perfect example how the local people help themselves. In Vietnam the gap between the rich and the poor is widening dramatically.
This is another project we support 100%.

After dinner we met with Hoan and Lin to discuss a project in Hanoi. Kid, a friend of Hoan, who is also involved in VAVA … is a teacher and he also runs a computer repair shop. Kid wants to buy a photocopier for his shop, we have to work out the details of an interest free business loan. Lucky we know a lawyer … who also works for the House of Grace Centre.

VAVA stands for Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange / Dioxin
http://www.vava.org.vn/index.php
Photos will follow ...