Today brought another unique site visit where we traveled to the Vina Capital Foundation! Personally, this was the most influential site visit I have experienced so far. Mr. Rad Kivette from Vina Capital talked to us about his experience running an NGO in Vietnam as a born and raised American. The company has eight different sectors, each focusing on improving Vietnam’s overall concerns including poverty and health. Mr. Kivette was very influential in his presentation because his perspective consisted of growing up in North Carolina while also living in Vietnam for 20+ years. Vietnam of course has problems like any country does, however Mr. Kivette’s approach to lecturing us about the things he has seen made it more personable for us students. Vina Capital focuses on the bottom third most poverty parts of Vietnam, emphasizing healthy women and healthy kids lead to a healthy country. For Vina Capital to be as influential as possible, the Vietnamese government gives them a list of the biggest problems in the country to work towards together. Most of this work takes place in hospitals and schools where minority ethnic women are helped with surgeries and medical issues and provided an education, ultimately paving a path to success. Also, as seen in the provided picture above we got to learn about some of the culture here in Vietnam. We got to paint traditional Nòn Lá hats and eat rice cakes from different regions of the country. We have been taking classes at UEF every day and so far this was my favorite. Today’s class helped me understand the differences in Vietnamese culture by each region. Overall, today was the most influential and memorable day for me so far in Vietnam and I can’t wait for the rest of my time here!