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MSAVLC has been supporting Thanh Xuan Peace Village in Hanoi for many years by giving donations for medical equipment.
It is not a village as we normally understand the term. It is a group of ugly, grey, concrete buildings which surround a children’s playground situated in the outskirts of Hanoi. The village was built in 1991 with the help of a German charity and its purpose was to “Relieve the pain and sorrow of the victims of war”. Between 1991 and 2000 their main source of funding had been from national and international donors, and MSAVLC supplied them with much-needed medical equipment. Since 2000 the Vietnamese government has stepped in to help fund the village, providing them with about 200 million dong (about £6,000) per year. It appears insufficient for all of their needs. There are 130 children based in the village at present and most of them are resident there, except for about 20 children who live nearby and travel daily. The children’s ages ranged between two and eighteen and all have physical or learning difficulties, the majority due to the effects of dioxin poisoning.
There are a number of treatment rooms on the ground floor. The rooms and equipment are owned by the Peace Village and they are used by the children for physiotherapy and acupuncture in the mornings. They are also used by local adults in the afternoons, and this is a small but vital source of funding for the village.
The main school building is in quite a dilapidated condition. The corridors are cold and damp, the concrete walls are crumbling and have obviously not been painted for years. It is reminiscent of the pictures that you see of Romanian orphanages during the Ceausescu era. At the far end of the corridor there is an open shower where children can be washed down.
In each of the classrooms are youngsters of a variety of ages and abilities. There are a few pieces of educational play equipment but not enough to go round, a few posters and some children’s drawings on the tired and peeling walls, chairs and tables and a few half-empty cupboards. It is a depressing environment and yet the children are being well cared for by dedicated staff. Obviously, scarce resources are spent on the children, not on the buildings.