Nguoi Viet Thursday, January 18, 2007 By Tara Bui
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Nearly 250 people attended an event staged by the United North American Vietnamese Student Associations, learning about the residents of Rạch Giá, Việt Nam — where kids scrounge around landfills, hailing from 82 needy families that cannot provide for their children’s future. To provide scholarships and more importantly, to offer microloans for the struggling adults, uNAVSA members asked the audience to be as generous as it could. The goal was to collect $30,000, which the organization hoped to award to the Catalyst Foundation, which will distribute the aid.
uNAVSA, an umbrella group for Vietnamese student associations sprouting on college campuses, launches a national Collective Philanthropy Project each year. For 2007, it selected Catalyst. For 2006, it shone the spotlight on the Vietnamese Alliance to Combat Trafficking, or VietACT, by amassing $40,000 for the grassroots venture dedicated to combating human trafficking.
“All the change in the world starts locally. These people are young, but they are working together to help in Vieät Nam when they could be doing other things on a three-day weekend,” says Tammy Trần, president of VietACT.
“The Vietnamese American community is very unique,” says Californiastate Sen. Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana), who spoke before the crowd. “It is so far from Việt Nam, so cut off, but continuously so involved. It rallies to help the affairs there. Very few immigrant communities tend to trace themselves back like that.”
The association is hoping to raise $35,000 for Catalyst, which, in turn, will grant two-year scholarships for training at the foundation’s private institution, a weekend camp for 200 youngsters and a new playground.
Thirty-five girls have been chosen for the scholarships, and a centerpiece graced each guest table, adorned with orange carnations and biographies of each child. Ideally, the training hopefully will prepare them for entrance into the public school system, said organizers, who also plan to process paperwork for each student to get them birth certificates. Lacking the documents has kept them out of class, they explained.
Rạch Giá, in the Kiên Giang province, is a small city about six hours south of Sài G̣n. Because it’s dangerously close to the Cambodian border, many girls find themselves in the situation of being tricked or sold into prostitution and slavery, association members say.
“Everyday, the garbage truck comes to dump trash into this landfill,” says Hanna Nguyễn, Collective Philanthropy Project deputy director. “Parents and their children work until 2 a.m. digging through garbage to find recyclables to sell. Their homes aren’t normal homes, but homes built of trash. Girls are often raped to see if they are fit to become prostitutes.”
“It’s our hope to help these children grasp a sense of childhood that they can never really have back,” adds Anna Nguyeăn, project director.
Perhaps, for the youngsters of Rạch Giá realization that people care will become the catalyst for their own hope.