Another Day in Paradise

For the past couple of days we have continued working with our first round of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The NGO I’m working with, the Morning Star Center, is a school and rehabilitation center for children with several types of learning disabilities, including primarily autism. I wrote about the Center in depth in my last entry.

Compared with many NGOs in Vietnam, the Morning Star Center has an excellent facility and great potential to make a large, positive impact in its service area. The main challenge faced at the center is the lack of training, or lack of specialized training in educating children with learning disabilities. Mainly due to limited funding, lack of hiring resources, much of the staff gets its training on the job or in fast-track training programs of various qualities.

This brings me to the second step in the process of helping the Morning Star Center, which is the stage where we try to help develop solutions to such problems. In this case, it means to devise sustainable training programs, using qualified volunteer staff from Volunteers for Peace Vietnam (VPV) to supplement Morning Star Center’s staff training resources on an as needed basis. Since I have been here, I have noticed that at any given time VPV usually has a couple of volunteers with teaching qualifications. Usually, these volunteers are assigned to projects that involve teaching English or serving as assistants to other local teachers. However, it should be possible to use these volunteers in another task, i.e., the solution we have been working on. Today, I will be drafting a program proposal that will entail asking volunteers with certifications in special education areas to develop and deliver training programs for the staff at the Morning Star Center.

On a separate note, things in Vietnam are going well. We have been invited by Erik Page, the US Vice Consul in Vietnam, and fellow Citadel bulldog, to visit Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) this weekend, and discuss current topics related to our work here.

Things at VPV Peace House - nicknamed COMA 6 due to its former residence of a construction/supply - are going well. We are surrounded by a diverse, capable, and even fun group of volunteers, many of whom have become very tight knit over the past couple of weeks.  We also have a large, unusually bold and brave contingent of rats that have a knack for performing acrobatics on exposed wires from the ceiling. This is a great feat given their large size.

-Matthew Allen Stewart