Our first CEF visitors of the year ~ Guest blog by CEF's Thuy

Today, we had the great pleasure to welcome the first group of this year at our CEF office. They were Ms. Miriam,  and Ms. Aurora, from ‘Focus on Women’ (from Spain), and their tour guide.

Normally, Linda, our founding director, is the person who is responsible for talking about CEF to visitors. However, she is in Australia now, so we, the CEF staff, were very excited to take over. Thanks to Linda’s advice, we discussed, prepared and shared the work with each other. We also prepared a Power Point Presentation which made us all remember about our lectures at university. After the presentation and talks with them, we felt happy when they said that they were interested in CEF's work and commented that CEF was doing a great job. We are looking forward to hearing from them soon.

About my maternity leave & returning to work ~ Guest blog by CEF's Kim Chi

I have come back to work after 5 months off work to have a baby.

Having a baby has changed my life a lot. The time off seems to have passed quickly. All my personal likes and habits have to stop to focus on taking care of my daughter. I only have a short time at night to read books and to do household chores when she sleeps.

My daughter always smiles even she sees people for the first time. Vietnamese people say she always smiles because I smiled a lot when I was pregnant. That seems true to me as I smiled every day when I worked at CEF during my pregnancy. I felt very happy every morning when I went to CEF for working, and with having humorous colleagues, I laughed a lot.

I was very eager to come back to work to see my co-workers. There is a lot of work I have to update even after a short time off work, but I will catch up quickly.

Leaving my daughter at home with my mother is quite hard for me as I miss her a lot, but I will adapt because I love work.

Why so many CEF students find English difficult ~ Guest blog by CEF staff Ms Ngoc

As we visit many CEF children we have a chance to talk to them about their schooling. I found out that 80% of them have challenges in learning English, especially with their listening and speaking skills.  In my opinion, the main reason is that they are from remote areas and they do not have many opportunities to work on, and improve their English.

First I think at school in rural areas, they do not have enough school equipment for students to practice their listening skill, so students just hear their Vietnamese teachers’ voices. Besides, students are poor so they also do not have computers at home to listen to English conversations every day. Therefore, their skills are not as good as that of other students who live in urban areas. Second, because they live in rural areas they do not have any chance to talk with foreigners, which students need to do. They need to practice speaking English as much as they can in order to improve their speaking skills.

It is interesting that some of CEF students are willing to talk whenever they see Linda or their sponsors. However most of them are very shy and do not want to communicate at all. They lack confidence in speaking in English. Last but not least, when learning another language, from my perspective, we have to take full advantages of our time to do English exercises and practice our skills every day. However, CEF students are from poor families so they spend most of their home time helping their families with household chores. They do not have much time to study, although they have lots of subjects and homework to do at home. Due to some of the above reasons, I think CEF students find English challenging.

English summer classes for CEF tertiary students

With CEF’s support, the children can have better conditions to study; especially opportunities to develop their English.  If they have good English, they are able to communicate with their sponsors whenever they see each other.

Thoughts about why very poor children work hard at school ~ Guest blog by CEF staff Thuy

She helps her single mum with making small lanterns, but she is also an excellent student

For the very poor and disadvantaged children to get the same school results as children who are not from poor families, they have to make much more effort. Due to their low income, most poor parents can’t spend enough time and money on their children’s education.

Some of the parents have financial stress and it affects not only their emotions and behavior, but also their children. Lack of good study conditions (text books, reference books, tutoring and good health care) are a big disadvantage. Poor children also have less studying time than others because they have to help their families to do housework or even help their parents to earn more money in various ways, such as making straw mats, or working on the farm.

She helps her mum with straw mat making but it does affect her school results

Children with a disadvantaged situation generally have two approaches; the children study much harder and make lot of efforts in order that they can have a better future and some just give up due to it being too hard and go on to live a life like their parents do.

Most of students that CEF supports have ‘Good’ and ‘Fair’ school results as they understand how important education is and how it affects their future. Some students have excellent school results and are the best students at their school. They study so hard and spend most of their time trying their best to get those results. When I asked the exceptional students about their motivation, they answered that they want to make their parents feel happy and proud of them, and to have a good future to help their parents and themselves.

I think the reasons why some poor children study very hard at school is to overcome the difficulties in their life, to have a brighter future and for some it is simply to make their parents happy and proud of them. It’s also the reason why we always advice and encourage all our CEF students to keep working hard and making great effort with their schooling.

Funds raised for Tet Food Parcels for poor families CEF works with in Quang Nam

Tet', or Vietnamese New Year will be bountifully celebrated by some of our CEF families in Vietnam because of the generosity and support of LTC staff.

Raffle tickets were bought by the staff of a Sydney based company 'Language and Testing Consultants' who ran IELTS tests on December 5 and 12 at the University of Technology Sydney. They bought enough raffle tickets to enable us to present 22 Tet Food Parcels to some very poor families we work with in Vietnam.

Thank you to all of you at LTC who support our work in Vietnam, and especially to those of you who gave wonderful raffle prizes and to Graeme for organizing the raffle.

 

When they are poor they can't celebrate Tet ~ Guest Blog by CEF staff Thuy

Tet is the most important, popular and longest festival in Vietnam. This period begins one or two weeks before the actual celebration. It is traditional that before Tet every single household decorates their home, cooks traditional Tet food, organizes their end of year party, buys new clothes for their children, and prepares 'lucky money' for their children and their elders. 

People also try to pay off their debts and resolve all the arguments among colleagues, friends or family members. During Tet, people also have many small parties with families and friends. With all those required activities you can imagine how much people spend and need to spend before and during the Tet holiday.

Tet is also the time for everybody to go back to their hometown, gather with their family, visit relatives and friends, and have a relaxing time after a year of working hard. 

For very poor people will they feel the same about Tet? Will it be a meaningful time for them? Will they feel happy, excited and relaxed about Tet and during Tet? Or will they feel worry, stress and ashamed because they have too many things they are expected to spend money on but they can’t afford to do so?  

Parents trying to make ends meet by having help from their children

Her mother has been a  mat maker for many years. Her husband sometimes helps her, but also she has taught her daughter, who is a CEF student, how to make mats. So when her husband can't work, she helps mum.

Making mats does not create much of an income as they usually sell for about $3 each. But this mother has been making beautiful mats for a long time so the local government has designated her home as the home to go to to see mat making. They give her a small amount of funds for each tourist who comes to see her working. This boosts her income, so it makes it even more important that her daughter can help if tourists come and her husband isn't available to work with her.

The reeds grow locally and are dyed beautiful colors. 

The mats are a lot of work, on average taking two people two days to make one.  The final product is beautiful.

It is not unusual that the parents get help from their children to make ends meet. It could be with the rice  farming, with shelling the peanuts, taking lotus seeds out of the heads, or feeding the pigs or chickens. It is hard for many to make a living and having help from the children can make a difference.

The Thai Binh Trip ~ a wonderful experience ~ Guest blog by CEF staff Ngoc

It is amazing that I had a chance to visit all the children in a community in Tha Binh province - our children in the north, about 3 hours from Ha Noi by car. For me it is great to work with the children there so that I have more understanding about them and their lives. Obviously, there are differences in poverty in the 3 areas we work with; Da Nang, Quang Nam and Thai Binh. However, generally speaking, they are all very poor and in need of being supported by CEF. 

The CEF children and their families in this area are very honest and friendly. They make their living mainly from doing farming, raising fish, pigs and chickens. They have to work hard from early morning till late afternoon and in the evenings occasionally; however their incomes are quite low. From my point of view they are poor because they have lots of children. I was surprised that out of 30 poor families we work with, only around 10% of them have 2 children, 20% of them have 3 children and 70% of them have from 4 to 7 children. The children’s parents are not well educated, with some only attending the first few years of school. They are very religious and traditional as well, so I feel it is hard for them to know how to deal responsibly with their practical and financial needs.   Therefore many of them end up with large debts for their bills and living costs, and all their children’s education. Besides that, there is still serious discrimination between boys and girls in this area and many believe that the girls should not have much education. 

So, in my opinion, it is really important that CEF is able to support the girls there to finish their high school education and help those with great potential to have a tertiary education. It means they then have the potential to escape from poverty and change their future.  

An impressive Thai Binh student ~ Guest blog by CEF staff Ngoc

A lovely, determined and strong lady is what I see in Q, a 19 year old girl CEF student from the community we work with in Thai Binh province. I have had several chances to talk with Q via facebook and phone calls, and I was still impressed by talking face to face with her.

Q is from a poor family with challenging circumstances. Her mother had brain cancer for a long time and died shortly before she was due to start university in Ha Noi. Her family had quite a difficult situation at that time as her mother‘s health was seriously deteriorating. Her brother has mental illness too. Her brother suddenly became mentally ill 5 years ago just after he had passed university entrance exams in Ha Noi, and with high results too. He had to have 'treatments' which have still left him with mental illness, and her family is quite sad about this. 

Then, her father, whose health is not good, has had to become the sole breadwinner of the family. Q and her younger sister helped a lot with household chores and looked after their mother in her last months. At the time Q applied for university her mother’s health was deteriorating. All the relatives and neighbors, except her beloved father and auntie, strongly did not want her to go to university because of her family situation. They asked her to stay home and take care of her mother as well as work in the local factory to support her family. She was under stress at that time and struggled to make a decision. She loves studying and she thirst to have a university education. According to her, it is the only way to change her life and support her family in the future. However, while making her decision she always thought of her family - her unhealthy father, nearly dead mother, her mentally ill brother and lovely younger sister. She was in a difficult situation in which to make a decision for her future. She then knew that she passed university with a high result. I really admire her because under those hard circumstances, she did not neglect her studies and made the required efforts to pass university, and with an excellent mark. 

Her village is a small one so they discussed and talked about her and her family’s problems every day. She knew that. They  talked badly about her and the only two who always supported her were her father and auntie. However, she was very determined and decided to have  a university education although there were a lot of obstacles waiting for her. She overcame all gossip in her neighborhood and ignored their criticism because she strongly believes that education is the only, and the best way to escape from poverty and have a better future. 

She is a good example for a lot of girls in her village. I am proud of her whenever I talk about her with others. 

*Note: This student needs a sponsor or two to help her through university. Please contact CEF if  you can help. c.e.f.vietnam@gmail.com

Most of our high school students in Thai Binh wish to have a university education as a means towards ending the poverty of their families

Most of the CEF students in Thai Binh work really hard and wish to go to university, with several wanting to be doctors. Those three girls are totally capable of this goal as they are excellent students. 

We also have one student wanting to be a pharmacist, one a nurse, and one a business woman. The careers they are aiming  for are realistic and achievable. One of our students has a totally different goal; she wants to be a Catholic nun.

Most of the children we work with in this province know a tertiary education is the start to being in a position to help their families out of poverty. When they talk about the grinding poverty of their families some of them cry as they live in such challenging situations. 

The only way they will be able to go to university is if they are sponsored for the period of their  tertiary studies. We hope we can find sponsors who will help them achieve their goals.