Helping in Vietnam for over a decade, the true successes of all our volunteer efforts and your generous donations are beginning emerge! Seeing the happiness and pride that providing safety, shelter, nourishment and education brings our FIV families is what Families in Vietnam is all about! Read just a few of our favorite success stories below.
University Entrance Exams!
Several more of our students graduated from high school and took their University entrance exams. 7 children are currently in college. None of these teens would have been able to obtain an education if not for your support. N. is now the second girl in her family to graduate from high school through our program. Her older sister (pictured below) completed studies at a Medical College and now works in a pharmacy!
- Over 70 children complete each school year through our program.
- Children are currently supported in family care as an alternative to living on the streets or orphanage placement.
- Several children who missed the first few years of elementary school in order to sell postcards or beg to support their families are now in school with excellent attendance records.
- 3 former prostitutes and their children are finding hope for the future through access to education.
N was the first FIV child to make it to college!
She did so well in her last year that she received a full scholarship. Her family lives in rural Thanh Hoa province and was extremely poor until we started enabling them by paying school fees, buying them a water buffalo, and installing a well for their small farm. This success story would have been impossible without the generous support of her sponsors.
Mother: L. Sons: Q.A. and Q.L.
L. used to peddle to tourists in Hanoi with no support system nearby. She worked all day and long into the evening, and didn’t have time to take care of her sons, so she sent them to live with her mother in the countryside. Unfortunately, their grandmother didn’t approve of her lifestyle, because she was an unwed mother, and favored her other daughter over L. Therefore, she was not kind to her grandsons, Q.A. and Q.L. The boys were malnourished and would often be locked out of the house.
When FIV board member, Christen, visited, she discovered that the boys were having to sleep in “the duck room,” a small room in the house where the family kept their ducks and other fowl. The sanitary conditions were deplorable and the smell you could only imagine.
FIV was able to rent a small house for L. in the countryside, and helped her to secure a steady job. Now L. is able to raise her boys in a safe countryside area, out of the slums of Hanoi. She is no longer peddling. Q.A. has outstanding grades, and was ranked second in his class. Q.L. has average grades.
The boys were thrilled when FIV purchased a study table, lamp and calculator for them, as they value their studies but had no place (except miniature stools) to do their schoolwork. FIV continues to pay the boys’ school fees and provides monthly family support in order to ensure that L. is able to care for her boys sufficiently.
