A CEF student we are concerned about ~ Guest blog by CEF's Australian manager Graeme

Sometimes CEF does more than help a girl to finish school. M is 8. She has no parents. Her grandmother looks after her, sometimes, and when she can’t she’s left with her aunt and uncle. Uncle drinks and wants to ‘foster’ M to a male friend. Granny and auntie hit M. She doesn’t have proper meals and is afraid. Her carers don’t care for her.
CEF hopes that granny will let her go to a loving and caring situation instead of the one she is in of deprivation and abuse. We will work to find a solution and have help from others to make sure that M is safe and cared for.

Danger! Water! Guest blog by CEF's Australian manager Graeme

There are many ways in which the 35 children a day drown in Viet Nam: in rivers, lakes, the sea, fish ponds, canals, rice fields ... and wells. On a recent visit to minority families I saw this well just waiting for a baby, toddler or child to fall in. And the following day I saw one simple remedy of a cover on the well to reduce this tragic toll.

CEF runs water safety programs to raise awareness of the danger and to drown-proof the children whose schooling their sponsors support. 

Sponsorship program interviews in the mountains

Our sponsorship program is for students from very poor families whose homes are near the Laos border.

CEF staff are there in the mountains this weekend interviewing new children and their families who are in need of educational support. They also are re-assessing the girls we have been helping over the last year or two.

This scholarship program's goal is to help girls complete high school giving them more opportunities than many of their friends and relatives who didn't complete school, have married and started families while still of school age. Another important purpose is to help keep them safe and reducing their chances of being trafficked. Being in school makes a difference.

On top of helping keep them stay in school we also run educational programs including anti-trafficking, female health care and hygiene. We also cover contraception as unfortunately teenage pregnancies are not unusual here as the students board as their homes are so far away from school.