Dai Loc Orphanage Project

~Some of the children
playing in the sandpit~







~Filling the sandpit~




As is normal in the rainy season in Vietnam with its torrential rains and winds and occassional flooding, we expect it to be a challenge to carry out all our goals.

Our goals for Dai Loc Orphanage did have to be scaled down significantly due to one terrible storm, a typhoon and its resultant flooding. CEF's project volunteers, Cheryl and Lyn. both wanted to help the orphanage children but also needed to care for themselves and their safety, so there was an essential long gap in the project while we waited for conditions to stabilize.

What we did accomplish which is the important thing to concentrate on is that the two 'girls' and the children had a great deal of fun together as well as a wonderful educational opportunity. They had a party, play time, drawing time, painting time, they were given English classes as well as being provided with many games and toys and learning materials from Lyn and Cheryl and their friends in Australia. We jointly dug the hole for the sandpit and built the wall(meaning we paid the eldest boys to do the hard work and many of the young ones dived into the digging and filling free of charge!) The result was a large sandpit with those essential pieces of equipment needed to have fun in sandpits, such as moulds for castles and cakes, rakes, sieves, spades and buckets.

It was a very sweet and touching scene immediately after completion of the pit as all the children and their carers who were there at the time (people from 6 for 50 years old), got into the sandpit and played. There was total silence as they worked on their own creations or their group creation. As some of their structures took over meters of the pit, others abandoned the enjoyable and relaxing experience and just watched the creators.

It all was possible because of Cheryl and Lyn's love for children less fortunate than their own and a desire to add a good dollop of love and happiness to these children's lives. Thank you Cheryl and Lyn for all you gave and did.

Please see the wonderful and full story of the project that Cheryl, our CEF volunteer wrote in another blog story.

Goals for the future of the Dai Loc children:
We will make sure they have sand refills and sandpit supplies for ongoing play!

CEF would love them to have ongoing volunteers for 2-3 month periods at a time, who could teach English and provide their own transport to get out to the country, to Dai Loc Orphanage.

CEF would love a volunteer to help us create a small reading library with both English and Vietnamese books for them.

In Vietnam call me, Linda on 0904317163 or email me on c.e.f.vietnam@gmail.com if you think you can help.