Today’s visit to VinaCapital was interesting as I feel that it allowed us to see into some of the issues that Vietnam faces as a developing nation at a very grassroots level. We were able to discuss the types of services that people currently lack but need in order to survive and to excel. An example of this is the Heartbeat Vietnam program which provides necessary surgeries to children with “leaky valves”. This type of heart condition is common globally and if left untreated in a patient can lead to death. The important thing is that this condition is treatable which means that the lack of infrastructure previously existing was the reason that children were dying. Heartbeat Vietnam works to find the children suffering from heart failure, prepare them and their parents for surgery through training and other aid0in the time before the surgery, and to continue to work with the families after the surgery. Because of this program, children no longer needlessly die of a treatable disease but rather can grow up to be contributing members of society.

The other program that I found to be very interesting was the emergency response readiness program that provided equipment and training to medical centers in Vietnam. Many people are familiar with the saying “if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, but if you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.” This is very much the tactic employed here such that the saying that would apply here is “if you pay to provide a surgery, you save a life, but if you train a man to save a life, you save countless more.”  Overall, this program supplements the lacking infrastructure of the medical system in Vietnam and helps to address issues brought about by the failure of the education system to train proficient health care professionals.

VinaCapital and its commitment to giving back to the community by funding the VinaCapital Foundation is a demonstration of the company’s responsibility to the people and its country. Now that the company has developed enough to be very competitive in the market, there is opportunity for investment in the country of Vietnam itself. This demonstrates how far Vietnam has come as a country, so as to have companies that can afford to give money away to philanthropic efforts instead of just scraping by on meager profits. Not only does this giving behavior do good things for the country but it also does good the company as it is helping the nation to take steps towards having more middle income households that the company can use as customers.