Children of the world .... by Donavan...

Some of us believe in communism,
Some of us believe in capitalism,
Some of us believe in spiritualism,
Some of us believe in materialism
Some mothers believe in heavy dandy,
Some fathers believe in understanding.
Some of us believe in total freedom,
Some of us believe in laying the rules on.
But the children believe in friends,
For the children of the world,
Every boy and girl,
All they'll know is what we teach 'em,
Most of us fail when we try to reach 'em
For the children believe in having friends
Children believe in friends,
Children believe in having friends
Children believe in friends.
Some of us believe in Jesus Saves Ya,



20 children we sponsored in My Trung


"Only by coming to grips with difficulty can you realize your full potential." It is so true. This trip as not easy, but we managed to make the best out of it.



Dear CVSG Supporter,

At first we would like to take the opportunity to thank you all for your ongoing support over the years. Here is a quick back-glance of our activities in Viet Nam. We already talked to some of you about it, here are the exact figures.

We had a very different trip this time. As they say "ends well, all's well!!!

First downer was as Truc, a girl, we helped the first year. Her son was tongue tide, we paid for the operation and medication, roughly $ 170. This year she approached us again. Justin has problems with the waterworks. We asked her to see us at our hotel. Truc came and presented us with invoices for an operation, anaesthetic and the lot over $600. Ok, we have to have Justin checked out by a doctor. We organised an appointment 2 days later at children's hospital 2. We informed Truc but she did not like it. Hospital no good .... and she found all sorts of excuses. We insisted. Then she rang again and told us she would go and see the doctor on her own. "No, you have to take Justin" ... to cut a long story short, she did not go at all.
What a disappointment!!! But that was only the beginning!!!

It was amazing how wherever we came, people saw white skin and the $$$ signs popped up in their eyes!!! At a charity meeting in Danang the chairman asked how much money have you got. Re-phrase ... we are here to help, yes but .... then 5 minutes later someone else ... We told them again we are here to help children, to give scholarships ... not to buy tables and chairs for a new classroom. They showed us around, schools, pre-schools ... we saw plenty. We had to put our foot down, then we were driven to meet with the orphans. Yessss, and we sponsored them, 7 all-together. Two days of meetings and driving around!!!

Then we wanted to print a calendar, had it all set up .... for 2011. Found a printer, price was ok, $2.5 - $3 depending on the numbers. I gave him the pictures on an usb stick. When I rang him two days later he told me he can only print 15 - 20 copies ... we wanted 300. You need a government permit to print calendars. Our calendar did show poor people in VINA, which the government does not like, so we would not get a permit. It did not come across that blunt, but we asked other Vietnamese people, and that is how we found out.

We encountered some problems with the Hope School too. We already sponsored 12 children last year. Everything is sweet now, but it was just the straw that broke the camels back when it happened.
We dropped off three lap tops at the Hope School, but they NEED more LAP TOPS ... and other places asked for lap tops too. Everywhere you go there is WIFI in VINA. Talking about WIFI, I bought myself a new mobile with 2 SIM cards and WIFI ... now we do not have to carry two phones when we travel overseas.

Our friend Hien introduced us to Ha from the Saigon Times Foundation. The foundation has been set up to give scholarship to underprivileged children and students all over Vietnam. Now we cooperate with the STF. The foundation is currently working on the scholarship for the 20 students in My Trung. Here is an article from the Saigon Times .... we sure had fun .... and we decided to work together, we have common goals, they have the local knowledge ... clearly a win win situation.




Pic.: Meeting at Saigon Times Foundation
http://www.thesaigontimes.vn/epaper/TB-KTSG/So36-2010%281.029%29/33469/ <-- here in colour and in Vietnamese!!!

Conclusion
Scholarships for ONE Year:
Paid scholarship for 13 pupils at the Hope School for Hearing impaired children Binh Thanh;
Paid scholarship for 20 pupils in My Trung (Mekong delta);
Paid scholarship for 10 pupils in Binh Thanh district;
Paid scholarship for 3 pupils at 'Song Lo' school, Binh Thanh district;
Total Scholarships 46
Paid hex fee for 2 orphan students in Danang for one year
Paid music lessons f. 2 students at the Peace Orphanage for six months
Paid support to 5 orphans for food and general expenses in Danang for one year
Donated money to 18 disabled children in Binh Thanh district;
Total support 73 pupils / children

We also donated VND 20.000.000 ~ $ 1200 to Hoa Van Stone's Company of Grace (CoG).



Uli and Hoa

Hoa and the Company of Grace are helping young disabled kids – we are on the same wave length and have so many common goals. A contact was established and we will support Hoa and the CoG as much as we can.
Hoa set up a power point presentation. Hoa and CoG are interested in second hand mobile phones. When your plan expires, please get a new phone and donate the old one to us, we will find a way to get the phones to Hoa, thank you.


Here are some blog statistics:
All in all we had over 400 views of the blog,
> 250 from Australia alone,
49 from USA closely followed by
41 from Germany then
30 from Canada
19 from Vietnam
15 from UK ...


It reads like some medal tally at the Olympics, except for Vietnam ....

Now ... this is the end !!!

We can not thank you enough for your support.