Sunday September 8th is 'International Literacy Day'

Children’s Education Foundation - Vietnam’s ‘Mobile Library for Literacy’ works to encourage literacy through our mobile library service in Vietnam.

We take books to the children in our education programs in Da Nang and Quang Nam provinces. Books are also available for their siblings.

Lending books doesn't just increase literacy; there are other unexpected aspects to it, such as bringing great joy to the children! Also excitement is a very common reaction when they learn they can borrow a book, or two or three or four, as it is a real treat!

As the mobile library books grow in number we are able to lend more books to each child, to their siblings and parents as well. The more books, the more people become more literate!

Please invest in literacy by supporting our ‘Mobile library for Literacy’.

To donate:
Americans / USD donations: PayPal is on the US website and blog
http://www.cef-vietnam-usa.blogspot.com
www.cef-vietnam-usa.org

Or please write a check and make it out to:
‘Children’s Education Foundation – Vietnam’ And send to our US manager:
Stephen Jackel, 277 Broadway, Suite 1010, New York, NY 10007

We have 501(c)(3) status (Internal Revenue Code). Please consult your accountant regarding the tax-deductible eligibility of your gift.

Australians / AUD donations: PayPal is on the Australian website and blog
www.ChildrensEducationFoundation.org.au
http:ChildrensEducationFoundation-Vietnam.blogspot.com

Or please deposit funds into ‘Children’s Education Foundation’ account
Commonwealth Bank, Bondi Junction, NSW 2022.
Account: 10955621, BSB: 062-124
And please notify our Australian manager: Graeme c.e.f.vietnam@gmail.com

Or checks can be mailed to: 'Children's Education Foundation (Vietnam)'
PO Box 35, Glebe, NSW 2037

'Each donation makes a difference to literacy in Vietnam'

Tam Ky and Nui Thanh home visits, written by Kim Chi

We had a fantastic home visit day going to Tam Ky and Nui Thanh homes on 25th August. We started early at 5:30 AM. It took one and half hours to arrive at Tam Ky. We saw the beautiful landscape as we traveled of the peaceful river and the mountains shrouded in the fog in the early morning.

We were very satisfied about almost all families in Tam Ky and Nui Thanh as they are honest and doing well. All children had a good summer vacation, with some of them attending extra classes, some of them could help their family at home and they studied as well.

I was impressed by Dieu and Bao Linh's family. Dieu has no parents but she has sweet grandparents and siblings who have worked hard to nurture her to become a lovely and gentle girl. Bao Linh’s mother has suffered with an ovarian tumor but she still wants Linh to continue going to high school in Hoi An. Therefore, she works hard to earn money for Linh's studying costs in Hoi An. She is a sweet mother.

We also had a delicious lunch at Thanh Long pagoda in Nui Thanh; it is very peaceful there. I was little tired at the end of the day, but happy because I could get more experiences and understanding about CEF’s children's situation.

About Lien, who is one of our valued staff and a dear friend

I am very blessed to have Lien helping CEF and myself in Vietnam. Lien does everything from referring children to CEF to be assessed due their extreme poverty, to visiting them to see if their story is true, collecting information, setting up the use of the local community halls to have events with the children and getting the right paperwork done, dealing with local authorities when required, finding lost visitors, shopping for supplies for special events at Vietnamese prices, cooking delicious vegetarian meals for CEF staff and myself, and much much more. Lien is also a caring friend who goes way beyond her work duty often. If it wasn't for her, my life in Vietnam would be quite challenging and much more costly.

Lien said the following about working for me and CEF: "Linda is not a Vietnamese person and Linda is from a very far away country. Linda has come here and has stayed here for a long time to help the poor children in Viet Nam. So this makes Lien appreciate this work and Lien wants to help CEF as well as help Linda. If CEF could not exist, what would happen? This is the reason why Lien wants to help CEF and wants to protect CEF as well."

As you can see from the picture, her best friends are nuns and Lien is studying Buddhism with the goal of becoming a Buddhist nun. Lien says about herself: "According to Buddhist theory, I suffered from many adversities in the past, which makes me have lust, hatred and delusion, so I want to be a nun in order to have peace in my mind. For the rest of my life, I really hope that I will be in peace and contentment and that everything will be non-ego."

Why CEF helps Phuc Le girls to be educated - Guest Blog by Brian

Late afternoon;waiting for mum to return from the rice fields

As in most places, young children in the village of Phuc Le, northern Vietnam, enjoy the early part of their lives, while being blissfully unaware of the worries, anxiety and hard work endured by their parents to ensure family survival.

The delightful young girls pictured were encountered by the writer on a late afternoon stroll through the village. Through an interpreter they recounted how their mothers spent many hours working on the family rice plot; toiling for days on end to grow sufficient rice to feed the family for the coming year.

One spoke of her mum, who being very sick with a heart condition, continued to work each day. When questioned about grandparents, another told me how her nanna was bent almost double, a condition brought about by years of laboring in the rice fields; and a sight the tourist will often observe on the streets of cities and towns across the country.

It is stories like these that have inspired Linda and her supporters to try their utmost to “make a difference” for some of these kids. Education is the key. All too often, when a family has insufficient resources to educate all of their children, it is the girls who miss out in favor of their brothers. This inevitably sentences the girls to a life of toil in the rice fields.

By assisting families in that situation CEF is able to give those girls a chance of a better life. An education opens up options for the future and the manner in which a young person might choose to live, love, work and support their family. Your support is vital. And it is important to remember: by assisting one child to a well rounded education you will also be benefiting the lives of not only her current family, but all who may become part of her life in the future.

Let us hope we can keep the smiles on the faces of beautiful kids like these.

CEF is fortunate to have Ngoc working full time now; here she introduces herself

I am Ngoc. I have just graduated from the College of Foreign Languages at Da Nang University. I like travelling, watching films(especially Korean films), shopping and reading detective novels.

I also like peace and really hate a noisy and busy atmosphere. It is lucky that I was born in Hoi An. It seems that the living rhythm here is so suitable for me.

Up till now, I have worked for CEF as the education program assistant for nearly a year. I am responsible for the children in our education programs in Da Nang, Dai Loc and Dien Ban. Besides that, I am also responsible for the Mobile Library program. Having worked for CEF for around a year, I had a chance to enrich my knowledge and get more experience in working for an NGO. I realize that I am really keen on working in this field. I am too young and I had no experience when starting working for CEF, but thanks to Linda and her staff, I think I am more mature now. They are very nice with me and help me a lot. I love my part-time job now and love the working environment in CEF so I did apply for a full time staff position.

I am interested in doing charity work because I want to help the poor, especially the poor children. I hope they can have a strong belief in their bright future, which is possible if they try hard to study now. I do believe that if we try our best, we can overcome challenges or obstacles in life.

7 alarming education facts that YOU can change!

These facts are shocking, but if everyone who reads them does something, that is then one less girl out of school and one less girl marrying before 18 and .........

If you want to help a girl receive an education please email us or any organization with education sponsorship programs: c.e.f.vietnam@gmail.com (AU&NZ) / info@cef-vietnam-usa.org (US&Canada)

1. 31 million girls worldwide are out of school.

2. 7 million cases of HIV could be prevented in the next decade if every child receives an education.

3. A child born to a mother who can read is 50 percent more likely to survive past age 5.

4. Each extra year of a mother’s schooling reduces the probability of infant mortality by 5 percent to 10 percent.

5. 215 million kids are involved in child labor, which deprives them of an education.

6. Two-thirds of the world's 880 million illiterate adults are women.

7. Every day, 39,000 girls younger than 18 get married. For them, education is freedom.

www.ChildrensEducationFoundation.org.au (for AU / NZ interested individuals)
www.cef-vietnam-usa.org (for Americans and Canadian's)



(Facts copied from article in Huffington Post, by Global Motherhood, in partnership with Johnson & Johnson)

Chi is Children's Education Foundation's most recent staff member ~ here she introduces herself

My name's Chi. I come from Duy Nghia Village – Duy Xuyen District. I have just graduated in Business Administration at the Economic University of Da Nang.

I was born into a poor family, and unfortunately I have never seen my dad. I was lucky that I was helped by Blue Dragon Foundation to receive an education. So now, I wish I could do something to help disadvantaged people the same as me.

During my student life, when I had free time, I used to volunteer for many NGOs, like Project Indochina and the Sunshine club, which gave me more experience and understanding about life of the poor.

I’m very happy to work with Linda and her nice staff. I hope I can apprentice quickly with their help.

Chi also graduated from university recently as did Ngoc. Achieving this goal is wonderful!

I am thrilled to have Chi join our CEF team and I am sure she will fit in well and learn quickly.
Welcome Chi!

The hard-working families of Phuc Le Guest blog by Brian

While Vietnam as a whole climbs steadily up the economic ladder, many of its citizens, particularly in rural areas, continue a daily struggle against poverty. The tranquil, some might say idyllic, setting of the CEF target village of Phuc Le, belies the hard life faced by many mums and dads in the struggle to provide life’s basic needs for their families, ie. to feed, clothe, shelter and educate their children; and to keep them safe from sickness and disease.

Typical home of a CEF Student – Phuc Le Village

Phuc Le is a farming community; but not one to which many of us in fully developed countries would relate. For farming in this region read “subsistence” farming, a form of farming in which nearly all of the crops or livestock raised are used to maintain the farmer and the farmer’s family, leaving little, if any, surplus for sale or trade. The survival of the family is dependent on the success of the crop, predominantly rice in this region.

In this situation families must often prioritize in trying to fund those basic needs mentioned above. All too often it is education, investment in the future, that suffers most when things get tight. And, through cultural mores, it is more often girls in the family whose education is curtailed. A depressing situation when world authorities recognize that female education is the key to raising living standards across the globe.

Thus, Linda and CEF, with support from wonderful sponsors, have for some years assisted a number of Phuc Le families in order that they might keep their daughters in school, even when the going gets tougher than usual. And the results are starting to show. I recently had the great pleasure of interviewing no less than four young ladies who have just completed Year 12 with good grades, and are now preparing to sit for University Entrance Exams. Take a bow all you guys involved.

For me it has been such a great experience. To be privileged to return each year and see these young people, who just a few years ago were too shy to say boo, now self-confident, assertive young women with great personalities; all ready to take that next big step onto life’s stage, and with options in life their mothers and grandmothers could only have dreamed of.

Trang,one of the graduates this year

Children's Education Foundation's 2013 Beach Outing and Water Safety Day

The local children arrived early and then came a large bus load from the outlying districts of Quang Nam and a small bus from Da Nang.

They added sun protection lotion and signed papers.

They had water safety talks with question and answer sessions.

They then were divided into groups, went down to the water and played some games at the waters edge to got used to the water.

And learned to float.

And learned to swim... a little...

And had fun!

Then they had morning tea, played games, had lunch, rested, did karaoke and headed off with afternoon tea and a photo of them all in a frame....

Brian came to the mountains with us to visit CEF families

Brian, one of our Australian board members, who is also part of the Thai Binh Education Program team, visited me in Hoi An recently. He came on our end of year trip assessment into the mountains. It enabled him to see what some of the family situations are like in the more mountainous and isolated areas outside Hoi An.





The countryside is very beautiful and its very peaceful up there; I love visiting the mountains. The families we help up there are clearly poor with very little in the way of work opportunities for the parents in such isolated areas.



Two of the families we visited are very sweet and life is hard for them. One is a single, disabled mum, who does farming. She has two children and is also responsible for her mother. The other mum is also a farmer and struggles to support the two children and her husband, who has had a stroke. Both mums can pick up some seasonal work sometimes.



It's always a pleasure to work with them and to know we ease the struggle a little by helping their children with their education.